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THE BASIS 

OF 

DURABLE PEACE 



WRITTEN AT THE 
INVITATION OF THE "NEW YORK TIMES" 



BY 

COSMOS 



30 



CENTS 
NET 



/ 




THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 



THE BASIS 
OF DURABLE PEACE 



WRITTEN AT THE INVITATION 

OF THE 

NEW YORK TIMES 



BY 

COSMOS QAJL 



liAjdrf^ 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1917 



$ 



-v1 



Copyright, 19 17, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Published January, 19 17 



\<\ 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

These papers were originally printed in 
The New York Times of November 20, 
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, and Decem- 
ber 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, 1916. 



/ 



JAN 15 1917 




INTRODUCTION 

PEACE AND ITS CONDITIONS 

Recent utterances of the German Chancellor 
and the British Prime Minister have inclined the 
discerning public to the belief that the chief men of 
the warring nations in Europe would now give more 
hospitable consideration than they have shown in 
the past to proposals embodying the broad general 
principles upon which peace must be concluded. 
Sharing that belief, The New York Times invited, 
from a source the competence and authority of which 
would be recognized in both hemispheres, a series of 
contributions in which the terms of peace should be 
discussed. 

As the publication of the series proceeded from 
day to day the public perceived the candor, the 
impartial fairness, the breadth of view, and the pro- 
found understanding of political principles with 
which the author weighed and considered the general 
conditions of peace, and then in turn the policies 
and interests of each of the Powers engaged in the 
war. All of them profess a desire for peace upon 
terms that will insure its permanency. In these dis- 
cussions the way to lasting peace is brought into 
view, the rivalry_of ambition and the clash of in- 



vi PEACE AND ITS CONDITIONS 

terests are so far as may be conciliated, and a set- 
tlement compatible with the demands of justice, 
with the rights of small and great nations, and giv- 
ing promise of freedom from the calamity of war is 
submitted to the public judgment. 

The New York Times has confidence that the pub- 
lic here and abroad will give serious attention to 
these papers because of the breadth of knowledge and 
far-seeing statesmanship they display, quite inde- 
pendent of the distinguished source from which they 
come. 

December, 1916. 



CONTENTS 



i 



PAGE 



IS THE END OF THE WAR IN SIGHT ? — RECENT BRITISH AND 
GERMAN STATEMENTS AS TO THE AIMS OF THE WAR — 
THEIR SIMILARITY IN FORM 3 

II 

great Britain's policy toward small nations and 
struggling peoples — her international trade pol- 
icy — germany's policy toward small nations and 
struggling peoples — is an agreement possible? . io 



III 

THE OPEN DOOR IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AS AN INFLUENCE 
FOR PEACE — ECONOMIC WAR AND PRIVILEGE A CERTAIN 
CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL UNREST l6 

IV 

WHAT IS MEANT BY THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS? — THE 
SEAS IN TIME OF PEACE ARE FREE — THE SEAS IN TIME 
OF WAR 21 



EXEMPTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY AT SEA, NOT CONTRA- 
BAND, FROM CAPTURE OR DESTRUCTION BY BELLIG- 
ERENTS — THE POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES — ACTION 
OF THE TWO HAGUE CONFERENCES 26 



VI 

FRANCE IN THE WAR — THE AIMS OF FRANCE: RESTITUTION, 
REPARATION AND NATIONAL SECURITY — A METHOD OF 
SECURING REPARATION THAT WILL AID A DURABLE PEACE 34 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 



VII 



PAGE 



THE QUESTION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE — THE DECLARATIONS 
OF 187 1 — FAILURE OE GERMANY'S POLICY OF ASSIMILA- 
TION ' 40 



VIII 

RUSSIA AND THE SLAVS — THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IN RUS- 
SIA — THE BOSPORUS AND THE DARDANELLES ... 46 



IX 

PRUSSIAN MILITARISM — ITS BASIS AND ITS CAUSE — HOW 

FAR IT MAY BE CONTROLLED BY CONQUEST .... 54 



THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL 
ORDER — THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NATIONS — THE IN- 
TERNATIONAL MIND — INTERNATIONAL LAW AS NATIONAL 
LAW 63 

XI 

WORK OF THE FIRST HAGUE CONFERENCE — DISARMAMENT 

AND ARBITRATION — THE COURT OF ARBITRAL JUSTICE . 69 

XII 

WORK OF THE SECOND HAGUE CONFERENCE — DISTINCTION 
BETWEEN AN ARBITRAL COURT AND AN INTERNATIONAL 
COURT OF JUSTICE — PRACTICAL PROPOSALS FOR THE 
ESTABLISHMENT OF A REAL COURT — ANALOGY BETWEEN 
AN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE AND THE SUPREME 
COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 77 

XIII 

SUGGESTED MODE OF PROCEDURE AFTER THE WAR — WORK 
FOR A THIRD HAGUE CONFERENCE — FOUR SPECIFIC PRO- 
POSALS FOR ACTION 87 



CONTENTS ix 

XIV 

PAGE 
ENFORCEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE ADMINIS- 
TRATION OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER — CRITICISM OF 
THE PROPOSED USE OF FORCE TO COMPEL SUBMISSION OF 
EVERY INTERNATIONAL QUESTION TO A JUDICIAL TRIBU- 
NAL OR COUNCIL OF CONCILIATION BEFORE BEGINNING 
HOSTILITIES — DIFFICULTY OF THE UNITED STATES MAK- 
ING ANY AGREEMENT TO THIS END — THE REAL INTER- 
NATIONAL GUARANTEE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY . . 96 

XV 

THE PART OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE ENFORCEMENT 
OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND IN THE ADMINISTRATION 
OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER — THE MONROE DOC- 
TRINE—A EUROPEAN AND AN AMERICAN SPHERE OF AD- 
MINISTRATIVE ACTION — PREPARATION OF THE UNITED 
STATES FOR INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION — NATIONAL 
POLICY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 105 

XVI 

CONCLUSION — QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE — THE ESSEN- 
TIALS OF A DURABLE PEACE 115 

APPENDIX 123 

I. HALL CAINE TO COSMOS 
II. COSMOS TO HALL CAINE 

III. HALL CAINE TO COSMOS 

IV. COSMOS TO HIS CRITICS 
V. THE ARTICLES OF COSMOS 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 



IS THE END OF THE WAR IN SIGHT ? — RECENT BRIT- 
ISH AND GERMAN STATEMENTS AS TO THE AIMS 
OF THE WAR — THEIR SIMILARITY IN FORM 

THE time has come to consider whether the 
war may not shortly be ended by interna- 
tional agreement in which the United States 
shall participate. 

For some months past the centre of gravity of the 
world's interest has been steadily shifting. It is now 
coming to rest at a new and gravely significant spot. 
The question as to who or what power is chiefly 
responsible for the last events that immediately 
preceded the war has become for the moment one 
of merely historical interest. It may not be settled 
to the universal satisfaction for a generation to 
come. The importance of the war's issues has 
thrust into the background the discussion of the 
war's direct causes. The amazing records of the 
war's progress, with their alternate pages of cruelty 
and of heroism, of devastation and of self-sacrifice, of 
carnage and of superb national achievement, are so 
many and so crowded that they have overtaxed 
human appreciation and human understanding. 
We are now left unwillingly dull and insensitive 
to happenings almost any one of which would or- 
dinarily stir the imagination and inspire the art and 
the letters of a civilized world. 



4 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

Men everywhere were so appalled by the magni- 
tude of the war when it suddenly broke out, and so 
amazed at its revelations and its massive conse- 
quences in life, in treasure, and in sacrifice, that for 
more than two years they could see no solution of 
the world-wide problem that it raised other than to 
permit the war to run its course until one of the 
groups of great adversaries was forced to succumb. 
It was freely predicted that this end would be reached 
in three months, in six months, or at most in a year. 
Almost alone, Lord Kitchener indicated three years 
as the probable duration of the war. Of that period 
nearly two and a half years have already passed, and 
no end is in sight. Nevertheless, some things are 
now plain to the watching world. It is clear that 
the German Empire and its allies cannot win this 
war. That fact, which was confident prophecy 
after the battle of the Marne and reasonable ex- 
pectation after the failure at Verdun and the hap- 
penings along the eastern front, has been made cer- 
tain by the battle of the Somme, already drawn out 
over four long months, and by Great Britain's un- 
broken, complete command of the seas. It is also 
clear that, while Great Britain and her allies can, 
and doubtless will, win the war, yet the cost will be 
so unbelievably great and the resulting exhaustion 
in men, in money and in industry, so alarming, that 
victory on such terms can be only little less dis- 
astrous than defeat. 

Both in the warring countries and in neutral 
lands there has been of late much discussion as to 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 5 

how similar outbreaks of international war may be 
avoided in the future. This is certainly a highly 
practical question for governments and for peoples. 
But a still more practical question for governments 
and for peoples is how to bring this present war to 
an end without waiting for more complete exhaus- 
tion, more and more wide-spread destruction, and 
more and more far-reaching damage to civilization 
— provided always that the great issues of moral 
principle that are at stake be rightly decided. 

There are not lacking signs that the belligerent 
powers are ready to have this question pressed upon 
them with directness and with vigor. To under- 
take this means, first of all, to try to find a common 
ground for discussion. In order to do that we must 
go to the belligerent nations for a statement of what 
they severally conceive to be the objects for which 
the War is now continued. This, in turn, means 
that we must go first to Great Britain and to Ger- 
many for an answer. 

The war began ostensibly as a conflict between 
Austria-Hungary on the one side and Serbia on the 
other. With lightning-like rapidity the fact devel- 
oped that this conflict in the southeastern corner of 
Europe was not a cause but a symptom, and that the 
materials for a world war lay ready to hand in the 
ambitions, suspicions, rivalries, and world policies 
of the great powers to the north and west. It is in- 
creasingly clear that the war is, in last analysis, 
really a titanic struggle between two sharply con- 
trasted views of government and of life with Ger- 



6 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

many and Great Britain as protagonists. The first 
attack on Serbia was to strengthen the position 
and to advance the policies of the Central Powers. 
The springing to arms of Russia was to prevent 
the further subjection of a Slavic people. The 
quick arming of Germany was to ward off a possi- 
ble attack from the east, on the one hand, and, 
now that the fire had been lighted, to push forward 
to gain control of the seas on the other. The in- 
vasion of Belgium was not an end, but a means. 
The invasion and threatened conquest of France 
was not an end, but a means. The end was Calais, 
the Straits of Dover, Great Britain, and the con- 
trol of the seven seas. All this we can now see. 

How does the matter stand to-day ? Are these 
once obvious ends still controlling the minds and the 
policies of the warring peoples ? Death, suffering, 
and privation have given to the word WAR a new 
and terrible meaning for peoples who had known a 
long generation of peace. While in no belligerent 
country is there any weakening of effort or lack of 
conviction of the justness of their cause, there are 
everywhere the plain beginnings of an effort to seek 
some solution^ of the war's problems that will not 
mean the continuance, perhaps for a decade, of the 
present reign of bloodshed and destruction. The 
air is filled with wireless messages from chiefs of 
state. Who is to catch them, to interpret them, to 
act upon them ? It is contrary to the etiquette of 
war for Great Britain just now to speak to Ger- 
many, or for Germany to make polite reply to Great 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 7 

Britain. But when Mr. Asquith and Viscount Grey 
speak in Parliament on the ends and objects of the 
war, to whom are they really addressing them- 
selves ? When the Imperial German Chancellor 
rises before the Reichstag and makes reply to pub- 
lished statements of Viscount Grey, to whom is he 
addressing himself ? Is it not the fact that these 
statesmen are at this very moment really discussing 
publicly terms of peace and the conditions on which 
this war may be ended, while seeming only to make 
formal statements to their immediate colleagues ? 

Speaking to the Foreign Press Association in 
London oh October 23, Viscount Grey used these 
words : 

I take it on the word of the Prime Minister that we shall 
fight until we have established the supremacy and right of 
free development under equal conditions, each in accordance 
with its genius, of all States, great and small, as a family of 
civilized mankind. 

That is a noble ideal, which must waken response 
in every liberty-loving breast throughout the world, 
and one must applaud Viscount Grey's assurance 
that " when we are asked how long the struggle is to 
continue, we can only reply that it must continue 
until these things are secured." But is it a fact 
that these ends can be secured only by continuing 
this struggle to its desperate finish ? 

It so happens that we are not left in doubt as to 
Germany's answer. On November 9 Chancellor von 
Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking to what is called the 



8 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

main committee of the Reichstag, made specific 
reference to this statement by Viscount Grey. He 
insisted, of course, that the war was forced upon 
Germany, and that as a consequence Germany would 
be entitled to ask for guarantees against similar at- 
tacks in the future. But he added much the most 
significant statement that has been made in German 
official life in the memory of any man now living. 
These are his momentous words: 

We never concealed our doubts that peace could be guar- 
anteed permanently by international organizations such as 
arbitration courts. I shall not discuss the theoretical as- 
pects of the problem in this place. But from the standpoint 
of matters of fact we now and in time of peace must define 
our position with regard to this question. 

If at and after the end of the war the world will only be- 
come fully conscious of the horrifying destruction of life and 
property, then through the whole of humanity there will 
ring out a cry for peaceful arrangements and understandings 
which, as far as they are within human power, will prevent 
the return of such a monstrous catastrophe. This cry will be 
so powerful and so justified that it must lead to some result. 

Germany will honestly co-operate in the examination of 
every endeavor to find a practical solution, and will collaborate 
for its possible realization. This all the more if the war, as 
we expect and trust, brings about political conditions that 
do full justice to the free development of all nations, of small 
as well as great nations. Then the principles of justice and 
free development, not only on the Continent but also on 
the seas, must be made valid. This, to be sure, Viscount 
Grey did not mention. 

A comparison of these two profoundly important 
declarations indicates that it ought not to be im- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 9 

possible to find a formula as to the free development 
of all States, great and small, as members of a single 
family of nations, that would satisfy both the Brit- 
ish Foreign Secretary and the Imperial German 
Chancellor. 

Two questions immediately present themselves. 
When Viscount Grey and Chancellor von Bethmann- 
Hollweg use substantially the same words as to the 
free development of all nations, do they really 
mean the same thing ? If so, how are we to explain 
Belgium and Serbia? And then what about the 
conditions on the seas ? 



II 



GREAT BRITAIN S POLICY TOWARD SMALL NATIONS 
AND STRUGGLING PEOPLES — HER INTERNATION- 
AL TRADE POLICY — GERMANY'S POLICY TOWARD 

SMALL NATIONS AND STRUGGLING PEOPLES 

IS AN AGREEMENT POSSIBLE ? 

WHEN Viscount Grey and Chancellor von 
Bethmann-Hollweg use substantially the 
same words in regard to establishing the 
right of all nations, great and small, to free de- 
velopment, do they really mean the same thing? 

History will prove a more useful guide to an 
answer than merely theoretical discussion. The 
record of Great Britain, particularly that part of 
the record which has been made by the Liberal 
Governments of the last seventy-five years, is 
enviable, with a single exception. Russell, Palm- 
erston, Gladstone, Campbell-Bannerman, and As- 
quith have consistently given support to weak and 
struggling nationalities aiming for greater freedom, 
as well as sympathy to those nationalities that 
were submerged under conquering nations. Great 
Britain befriended Belgium and Italy and Greece. 
In Canada, in Australia, and in South Africa she 
has pursued a colonial policy as wise as it has been 
able. The much- denounced actions of Mr. Glad- 
stone after Majuba Hill and of Sir Henry Camp- 
bell-Bannerman after the South African war re- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE n 

suited in binding the South African people more 
closely than ever before to the British Empire. 
The one weakness in Great Britain's dealing with 
the problem of nationality is found in Ireland. 
The Irish question, complicated as it has been by 
problems of land ownership, of violent religious 
antipathy, and of traditional race antagonism, 
appeared to be well on the way to at least a pro- 
visional solution when the war broke out, and 
perhaps even greater progress may be made so 
soon as the war shall end. 

Since 1846 the free trade policy of Great Britain 
has undoubtedly been of great advantage to the 
world at large and to every nation whether great 
or small. If it could speedily have become uni- 
versal, to-day's problems of international trade 
and commerce would be wholly different, and some 
at least of the causes of international war would 
have been removed. Great Britain has not only 
supported the policy of the open door abroad, but 
she alone among the greater nations has kept an 
open door at home. The sharp differences of opin- 
ion that have arisen among the British people 
themselves during the past twenty years as to 
the success of the free trade policy, when measured 
by its effects at home, are not relevant to this dis- 
cussion. What concerns the world at large is the 
obvious fact that this free trade policy has been a 
benefit to every other nation, whether great or 
small. It has offered them the stimulus of a British 
market and the added stimulus of British com- 



12 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

petition. The history of German trade proves 
that Germany has everything to gain and nothing 
to lose by Great Britain's policy. 

Therefore, it is only fair to infer in view of these 
facts that Viscount Grey means that every nation, 
whether great or small, should be at liberty to 
develop as Belgium, as Italy, and as Greece have 
developed; that to every dependent nationality 
there should be granted that full measure of self- 
government which is characteristic of Canada, of 
Australia, and of South Africa; and that inter- 
national trade should be as little restricted and 
hampered as possible. This policy would satisfy 
liberal-minded men everywhere and would put 
international peace on a more secure foundation 
than it has ever had before. 

The record of the dealings of Germany with 
other nations, particularly small nations, is a dif- 
ferent one. This difference is due, no doubt, in 
part to different circumstances from those which 
have confronted Great Britain. It is, however, 
due in part to a distinct public policy. Germany, 
unlike Great Britain, has not found itself in island 
seclusion, but with long and easily crossed frontiers 
that marched with those of other and quite dif- 
ferent peoples. The relation of Germany to Po- 
land and to Denmark has been somewhat the same 
as that in which England stood to Scotland and 
to Wales in the time of the three Edwards. In the 
latter case the resulting wars ended, however, in 
a really united Great Britain, and not in submerged 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 13 

and unhappy subject populations. At this mo- 
ment the Prime Minister of England sits for a 
Scottish constituency and the Minister for War is 
a Welshman. Germany's treatment of Poland, of 
the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, and of Alsace- 
Lorraine has been unfortunate, to say the least, 
from the standpoint of a nation which is concerned 
for the free development of all nations, whether 
great or small. The plea of national necessity 
urged in explanation of this treatment, as in de- 
fense of the invasion of Belgium, is not convincing 
to modern ears. Yet it must not be too lightly 
set asid'e through lack of capacity to see the Ger- 
man point of view. 

Prince von Billow has described the policy of Ger- 
many toward Poland as a "mission of civilization," 
and he says that, if Prussia had not taken posses- 
sion of that part of Poland which now constitutes 
the Eastern Provinces, these provinces would have 
fallen under the dominion of Russia. In this state- 
ment there are two implications. The first is that 
it would be disadvantageous to the national de- 
velopment of Germany if these provinces had 
fallen into the hands of Russia. The second is 
that Germany could make better provision for 
the development of Poland, or for that part of it 
which was annexed, than Poland could make for 
itself. The first of these implications opens the 
door to a long debate which, in view of the estab- 
lished facts, would now be futile. The second 
raises a definite question which bears directly upon 



14 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

the meaning of the words, "the right of all 1 ns, 
great and small, to free development." If Poland, 
being a nation, possessing a language, a literature, 
and a body of traditions of its own, does not itself 
wish to be submerged under either Germany or 
Russia, then so to submerge it would appear to be 
in violation of the principles which Chancellor von 
Bethmann-Hollweg now announces as his own. 
The Allies are publicly committed to an autonomous 
Poland. A solution might perhaps be found if the 
Chancellor's language were interpreted to mean 
that, in such cases as those of the Poles and the 
South Slavs, the peoples in question should be 
given an opportunity to decide for themselves 
whether they prefer autonomy with national in- 
dependence or autonomy with dependence on a 
greater and neighboring Power. In order to satisfy 
the liberal opinion of the world, such peoples, and 
those of Ireland as well, must have autonomy. 
National independence, where it has long been 
lost or where it has never been gained, raises an- 
other set of questions which can hardly be answered 
save after detailed examination of each particular 
case. 

Therefore, whether Chancellor von Bethmann- 
Hollweg and Viscount Grey are in agreement upon 
this point would seem to turn upon whether Ger- 
many is willing to permit the Poles and the South 
Slavs to choose the form of their own political 
organization and to direct it when organized. If 
so, agreement between Germany and Great Britain, 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 15 

in .respect at least, is certainly in sight. Should 
Germany demur on the ground that her own na- 
tional security is at stake, the answer must be 
found in those new forms of international guarantee 
for national security which it is hoped will be pro- 
posed and adopted at the end of the war. 

More than once in the past it has been the policy 
of Germany to acquire, when possible, exclusive 
trade privileges and to insist upon them. Germany 
has not had the opportunity which the sixteenth, 
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries brought to 
England, of establishing great colonial depen- 
dencies' in the temperate zone, and therefore she 
has not been tested as England has been by the 
government of a Canada, or an Australia, or a 
South Africa. Yet, as far as the record goes, it 
indicates that Germany appears to favor exclusive 
trade privileges, if only as a basis for diplomatic 
negotiations, while England supports the open 
door. It must therefore be considered what ad- 
vantage there would be in any proposal that would 
bring Germany to the support of an open door 
policy as a means of binding the nations of the 
world more closely together and of removing one 
great cause of international rivalry and jealousy. 



Ill 



THE OPEN DOOR IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AS AN 
INFLUENCE FOR PEACE — ECONOMIC WAR AND 
PRIVILEGE A CERTAIN CAUSE OF INTERNA- 
TIONAL UNREST 

WHAT may, for convenience, be called the 
open door policy of international trade 
does not necessarily imply the total aban- 
donment of tariffs, either for revenue or indeed for 
protection, if that which is to be protected is in each 
case conceived as a really human and not merely a 
money interest. In so far as tariffs are levied by 
any nation as a necessary means of raising revenue, 
or in so far as they are, in the judgment of any na- 
tion, necessary to the protection of the standard 
of living of wage- earners or to the diversification of 
industry, and in so far as they apply equally to all 
nations, they are compatible with the open door 
policy in the broad sense. What the open door 
policy does involve is a changed point of view on 
the part of those nations which like Germany, 
France, and the United States, have been too 
largely under the domination of the notion that all 
imports are harmful, and that they displace an equal 
amount of home-made products. So long as any one 
great nation holds to the false theory that interna- 
tional trade is a mere casual incident to a nation's 

16 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 17 

business, and sometimes even a detriment to it, 
just so long will other great nations hold aloof and 
keep their excluding tariff walls more or less in re- 
pair. Whatever is done to make international trade 
more easy and more general must be done by the 
common consent of the great commercial nations of 
the world. 

There can be little doubt that false and mislead- 
ing views of international trade have had more to 
do with the development of those international 
rivalries and suspicions which preceded and made 
possible the present war than any other single 
cause. How to remove these rivalries and sus- 
picions, and how to substitute a new, a wiser, and a 
broader view of international trade for that which 
has heretofore prevailed, is one of the most serious 
aspects of the problem of effecting a genuine peace. 

This question cannot be settled by economists 
alone. Indeed, they are incompetent to settle it, as 
is made clear enough by the fact that the three 
most prominent German economists in this genera- 
tion have held sharply differing views on this ques- 
tion. Professor Wagner has taught thoroughgoing 
protection, Professor Brentano has taught complete 
free trade, while Professor Schmoller has taken a 
middle course. Similar divisions, though perhaps 
not always quite so definite as these, have existed 
in the ranks of French, British, Italian, Russian, 
and American economists. This question is to be 
settled, if at all, on the broad basis of constructive 
statesmanship and from the view-point of a just 



1 8 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

and secure international peace to which each nation 
must be willing to make its contribution. 

The fact must not be overlooked that there is in 
Great Britain a powerful body of political opinion, 
strongly supported by some economists, which would 
reverse the British trade policy of the past sixty 
years and institute a regime of new trade antago- 
nism and new international suspicion. It would be 
little short of calamitous should the trade policy of 
Great Britain be essentially changed now. The 
swift concurrence of other nations in a liberal trade 
policy, which Cobden and Bright foresaw and so 
confidently predicted a half century ago, did not 
result, but there never has been so favorable a chance 
for the concurrence of other nations as now presents 
itself. The pressure of the universal desire for a 
stable peace may accomplish what generations of 
argument and example could not do. If Great 
Britain will only persist in her present trade policy 
she may thereby make an even greater contribution 
to the peace of the world than she can possibly make 
by her navy, her army, and her almost limitless 
financial resources. 

The Economic Conference of the Allied Powers, 
held in Paris on June 14-17, 191 6, was most sig- 
nificant. To the extent to which the conference 
dealt with economic measures to be taken by them 
during the war, its conclusions and recommendations 
need not be discussed here. In so far, however, as 
this conference foreshadowed a period of purpose- 
ful and highly organized economic strife after the 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 19 

present military struggle is ended, it was discourag- 
ing and reactionary in the extreme. Two genera- 
tions ago Lord Clarendon, in referring to the ap- 
parent settlement of the Eastern question by the 
Treaty of Paris, wrote: "Nous avons fait wne paix, 
mais pas la paix." If the present military contest 
is to be immediately succeeded by a new and vigor- 
ous economic struggle, using all the implements of 
privilege, discrimination, and favor, then while the 
war may result in a peace, it will not result in that 
durable and secure peace on which the heart of the 
world is set. 

Meanwhile the people of the United States, at 
least, are at school. The war has literally forced 
upon them an international trade of stupendous 
magnitude, and it is rapidly transforming them from 
a debtor into a creditor nation. Since the outbreak 
of the war the people of the United States have 
bought back from Europe considerably more than 
$2,000,000,000 of their own securities, and, in ad- 
dition, they have loaned nearly, if not quite, $2,000,- 
000,000 to foreign countries and municipalities. 
These new and highly profitable experiences, taken 
in connection with the fact that for some years past 
American public opinion has been gradually taking 
larger and sounder views of international trade and 
of tariff problems, indicate that in the United States 
the ruling tendency is in the right direction. Such 
facts teach the American people, more thoroughly 
than any printed page can possibly do, what it 
means to engage in international trade on so huge 



20 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

a scale, and how it broadens the sympathies and 
widens the knowledge of all those who, directly or 
indirectly, are interested in the undertaking. ' ' For 
where your treasure is, there will your heart be 
also/' 

The Allies have an unexampled opportunity to 
lay the foundations of a durable peace if, when the 
war ends, they will offer to Germany and her allies 
complete participation on equal terms in the trade 
of the world, on the sole condition that political ac- 
tivity in other countries be abandoned and that an 
international guarantee for national security be at 
once agreed upon. Neither the Allies nor Germany 
need fear that in such case the influence of their 
national ideals, their public policies, or their litera- 
tures will be lost. It is undeniable, as the late Pro- 
fessor William G. Sumner once wrote, that: "We 
may be very sure that the wheat from America has 
had far more effect on ideas in Europe than the 
ideas from America." 



IV 

WHAT IS MEANT BY THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS ? 

THE SEAS IN TIME OF PEACE ARE FREE THE 

SEAS IN TIME OF WAR 

IN application of the principles thus far dis- 
cussed it would appear that agreement be- 
tween Great Britain and Germany in regard 
to establishing "the right of all nations, great and 
small, to free development" probably depends 
upon the granting of autonomy to Ireland, to Po- 
land, and to the South Slavonic peoples, as well 
as upon the general adoption of the open door 
policy in foreign trade. Belgium must, of course, 
be restored and indemnified by Germany. In like 
manner Serbia must be restored and indemnified 
by Austria-Hungary. Underlying and supporting 
all of these acts would be a new international 
guarantee for the national security of all peoples, 
great and small alike. If the mind of Great Britain 
and the mind of Germany could meet on these 
points — and why should they not ? — there is no 
reason to suppose that either France or Russia 
would hold back, unless perhaps it might be in 
regard to the more complete application of the 
open door policy in foreign trade. But France, 
who seeks nothing unreasonable for herself, and 
asks only national security and the protection of 
the principles of public conduct in which she ar- 

21 



22 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

dently believes, would almost certainly assent to 
a plan that would ask her to sacrifice so little in 
the way of a modified economic policy in order to 
attain so much of permanent good for herself and 
for the world. The situation as regards Russia 
appears to be quite similar, particularly if Russia 
can be assured of that free access to the sea through- 
out the year which she has so long desired, and 
which she should have in the general interest as 
well as in her own. 

There would then remain the one important 
question referred to by Chancellor von Bethmann- 
Hollweg in his speech of November 9 last, and not 
mentioned by Viscount Grey in his speech of October 
23, namely, the conditions on the seas. 

That Germany is deeply concerned on this point 
has long been apparent. The freedom of the seas 
is one of the five points covered by the peace pro- 
gramme of the Bund Neues Vaterland. It is made 
one of the peace aims of the German Socialists. 
Doctor Dernburg includes it in his six proposals 
for peace made public on April 18, 191 5. The Im- 
perial German Chancellor evidently lays great 
stress upon it. One must inquire, therefore, just 
what is meant by the freedom of the seas and in 
what respect that freedom is now lacking or denied. 

Under existing international law the seas are, 
and long have been, free outside of the conventional 
three-mile limit. There are no longer any pirates, 
and no charge is made for traversing the seas be- 
tween one port and another. There are no rights 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 23 

of way over the ocean. In law, therefore, the seas 
would seem to be even freer than the land. Small 
peoples with insignificant navies, such as the Nor- 
wegians, the Danes, the Dutch, and the Portuguese, 
have been and are successful sea traders to no in- 
considerable extent. Germany herself has, within 
the past forty years, built up a stupendous mer- 
chant marine, and at the outbreak of the present 
war her flag was as familiar as any other in the sea- 
ports of six continents. It would appear, then, that 
the desired freedom of the seas has nothing to do 
with the normal conditions of international peace; 
it must relate entirely to the abnormal conditions 
of international war. So far, therefore, as future 
international wars can be guarded against and 
averted by an agreement upon such policies as 
have already been described, all differences as to 
freedom of the seas will disappear. If, however, 
the world is to contemplate another international 
war like that now raging, what is the ground for 
that German uneasiness as to the freedom of the 
seas which is so apparent ? 

It is, however, not yet entirely clear just what 
specific things Germany aims at in pressing for 
freedom of the seas. The freedom of the seas to 
which the United States, for example, owes its 
existence and its prosperity, and for which both 
Holland and Great Britain stoutly contended in 
days gone by, is the freedom which Grotius defined 
when he laid it down as a specific and unimpeach- 
able axiom of the law of nations, the spirit of which 



24 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

is self-evident and immutable, that: "Every na- 
tion is free to travel to every other nation, and to 
trade with it." It is in this broad and fundamental 
sense that the world already possesses freedom of 
the seas. Those municipal regulations which so 
often restrict and harass international trade have 
no application on the sea itself, but only at the 
ports of entry. Doubtless, however, the mind of 
Germany, like the mind of Great Britain, has come 
very largely under the dominance of the argument 
of that American book which, on the whole, has 
had more influence in shaping modern European 
policy than any other work published on this side 
of the Atlantic. That book is the late Admiral 
Mahan's "Influence of Sea Power upon History." 
This illuminating book has, however, nothing what- 
ever to do with the freedom of the seas. It deals 
wholly with questions relating to the control of 
the seas, a quite different matter. Two of Admiral 
Mahan's ruling contentions are that commerce 
needs navies for its protection and that sea power 
has throughout the history of war been an im- 
portant and often a decisive factor. It is plain 
that in time of war, and as one of the incidents of 
war, the control of the seas will rest with the most 
powerful and best distributed navy. At such a 
time the seas cannot possibly be free to ships of 
war, which must take their chances in battle with 
an antagonist. What Germany doubtless has in 
mind is the fact that the British Navy is not only 
powerful enough to control the seas in time of war, 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 25 

but that this control may be, and in the German 
view is, so used as to deprive Germany and her 
allies of some advantages through trade with neu- 
trals to which they are legally entitled. This nar- 
rows the question down to neutral trade in time of 
war, and to the exemption of private property 
from capture at sea. On this topic there has been 
much discussion in recent years and the policies 
to which the United States is committed have 
been stated over and over again. What, if any, 
just ground of complaint against Great Britain 
and her allies have Germany and the neutral na- 
tions because of the way in which Great Britain 
has exercised its power of sea control in time of 
war, and how far must these grievances be taken 
into account in laying the foundations for a just 
and stable peace ? 



V 



EXEMPTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY AT SEA, NOT 
CONTRABAND, FROM CAPTURE OR DESTRUCTION 

BY BELLIGERENTS THE POLICY OF THE UNITED 

STATES ACTION OF THE TWO HAGUE CONFER- 
ENCES 

IT would appear, from what has gone before, 
that in time of peace freedom of the seas exists 
in the fullest sense of the words. The disputed 
questions relate entirely to the status and treat- 
ment of merchant vessels and their cargoes in time 
of war. These questions involve the detailed con- 
sideration of blockade in time of war, of contraband 
of war, of unneutral service, of destruction of neu- 
tral prizes, of transfer to a neutral flag, of the en- 
emy character of a vessel or its cargo, of convoy, of 
resistance to search, and of compensation. Im- 
portant and delicate as all these matters are, and 
seriously as they have engaged the attention of naval 
commanders and of international lawyers, they are 
really all subordinate to a larger question, namely, 
that of the exemption of all private property at sea, 
not contraband of war, from capture or destruction 
by belligerents. Were such exemption agreed to as 
a ruling principle, all of the other matters mentioned 
would fall into place and be disposed of as parts or 
applications of this main principle. 

The first inquiry addressed by the Government of 

26 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 27 

the United States to the Government of Great 
Britain after the outbreak of the present war was 
as to whether the British Government was willing 
to agree that the laws of naval warfare as laid down 
by the Declaration of London of 1909, should be ap- 
plicable to naval warfare during the present conflict 
in Europe, provided that the Governments with 
which Great Britain was or might be at war would 
also agree to such application. On August 20, 19 14, 
an Order in Council was issued directing the adoption 
and enforcement during the present hostilities of 
the convention known as the Declaration of London 
subject to additions and modifications. The sub- 
sequent history of the matter, including action taken 
by the British Government by way of addition to 
this Order in Council or by way of modification of 
it, is common knowledge. Since August, 19 14, the 
United States has addressed formal notes to Great 
Britain on the subjects of contraband of war, on re- 
straints of commerce, and in particular on the case 
of the American steamer Wilhelmina. The Govern- 
ment of the United States has shown itself alert to 
the significance of these questions and incidents of 
war for all neutral Powers. 

On the vital point of exempting all private prop- 
erty at. sea, not contraband of war, from capture or 
destruction by belligerents, the United States has 
taken a single and a consistent position throughout 
the entire history of the Government. Indeed a pro- 
vision for this exemption was made part of the Treaty 
of Amity and Commerce of 1785 with Prussia. It 



28 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

was there agreed that free vessels make free goods. 
The signers of this treaty on behalf of the United 
States were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, 
and John Adams. In' 1856 the United States urged 
the addition of this provision to the clause of the 
Declaration of Paris relating to privateering. The 
fact that such addition was refused by the other 
high contracting Powers led the Government of the 
United States to decline to adhere to the Declara- 
tion of Paris. 

The formal instructions to the American dele- 
gates to the first Hague Conference, held in 1899, 
signed by John Hay as Secretary of State, concluded 
with these words: 

As the United States has for many years advocated the 
exemption of all private property not contraband of war 
from hostile treatment, you are authorized to propose to 
the Conference the principle of extending to strictly private 
property at sea the immunity from destruction or capture 
by belligerent Powers which such property already enjoys 
on land' as worthy of being incorporated in the permanent 
law of civilized nations. 

Following messages on this subject from Presi- 
dent McKinley in December, 1898, and from Presi- 
dent Roosevelt in December, 1903, the Congress of 
the United States adopted on April 28, 1904, a joint 
resolution in the following terms : 

That it is the sense of the Congress of the^United States 
that it is desirable in the interests of uniformity of action 
by the maritime states in time of war that the President en- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 29 

deavor to bring about an understanding among the principal 
maritime Powers with a view to incorporating into the per- 
manent law of civilized nations the principle of the exemption 
of all private property at sea, not contraband of war, from 
capture or destruction by belligerents. 

The formal instructions to the American dele- 
gates to the second Hague Conference, held in 1907, 
signed by Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, con- 
tained this passage: 

You will maintain the traditional policy of the United 
States regarding the immunity of private property of bellig- 
erents "at sea. 

Secretary Root then went on to discuss at some 
length the importance of this policy. 

At the first Hague Conference the representatives 
of nearly all the great Powers insisted that the action 
of the Conference should be strictly limited to the 
matters specified in the Russian circular of Decem- 
ber 30, 1898, proposing the programme of the Con- 
ference. For this reason the members of the Confer- 
ence at first refused to receive any proposal from 
the American delegates dealing with the subject of 
the immunity of private property not contraband 
from seizure on the seas in time of war. Eventually, 
however, a memorial from the American delegates, 
which stated fully the historical and actual rela- 
tion of the United States to the whole subject, was 
received, referred to a committee, and finally brought 
by that committee before the Conference. The Con- 



30 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

ference of 1899 adopted a motion referring the sub- 
ject to a future Conference, so that all the American 
delegates were able to accomplish at that time was 
to keep the subject before the world for discussion. 
At the second Hague Conference, which met on 
June 15, 1907, the subject of the private property of 
belligerents at sea was included in the official pro- 
gramme. It was among the topics referred to the 
Fourth Commission of the Conference, of which the 
chairman was M. de Martens, of Russia. A specific 
proposition, submitted on behalf of the United 
States, was supported by Brazil, Norway, Sweden, 
Austria-Hungary, and China. Germany, supported 
by Portugal, while admitting that it leaned toward 
the proposed inviolability of private property, made 
the reservation that its adoption of this principle 
depended upon a preliminary understanding on 
matters relating to contraband of war and block- 
ade. Russia did not think the question ripe for prac- 
tical solution; while Argentina declared itself cate- 
gorically in favor of the continuance of the right of 
capture. France was ready to support the Amer- 
ican proposal if a unanimous agreement could be 
reached. The representatives of Great Britain held 
that it was impossible to separate the question of 
the immunity of private property from that of com- 
mercial blockade, and that the interruption of com- 
merce was less cruel than the massacres caused by 
war. Nevertheless, the British delegates declared 
that their Government would be ready to consider 
the conclusion of an agreement contemplating the 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 31 

abolition of the right of capture if such an agreement 
would further the reduction of armaments. 

The proposition of the United States, when first 
put to a vote, obtained from the forty-four States 
represented 21 yeas, 11 nays, 1 abstention, and 11 
States not answering. The twenty-one States vot- 
ing yea included, with the United States, the fol- 
lowing present belligerent Powers: Germany (with 
the reservation already referred to), Austria-Hun- 
gary, Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Rumania, and Tur- 
key. Of the present belligerents France, Great 
Britain, Japan, Montenegro, Portugal, and Russia 
voted in, the negative. 

The discussions in the Fourth Commission give 
more ground than does the actual vote for believing 
that the proposal of the United States may be ac- 
cepted at the close of the war. The expressed ob- 
jections of France and Russia should now be readily 
overcome. The reservations made by Germany will, 
in the nature of things, be discussed and disposed of 
immediately upon the conclusion of present hostil- 
ities. There remains Great Britain, among whose 
people a large body of commercial opinion is already 
strongly in favor of the exemption of private prop- 
erty at sea. Only three years before the outbreak 
of war, at a meeting of the Council of the London 
Chamber of Commerce, a resolution moved by no 
less important a person than the late Lord Avebury, 
"that in the opinion of this chamber private prop- 
erty at sea should be declared free of capture and 
seizure," was carefully discussed and then adopted 



32 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

by a unanimous vote. Other important commercial 
bodies in Great Britain took similar action about 
the same time. The obstacle in the way to British 
concurrence is said to-be official admiralty opinion; 
but this is a case in which the admiralties of the 
world must surely be compelled to give way to the 
reasonable demands of those whose property is sub- 
jected to loss and damage by persistence in the pres- 
ent unhappy and uncivilized policy. The whole 
policy of commerce destruction is really obsolete 
and at variance with modern notions of public and 
private right. 

p At the conclusion of hostilities this question 
should be pressed to a final and favorable disposition. 
When this is done the freedom of the seas in time of 
war will be as fully established as war conditions 
themselves will permit. Subordinate questions as 
to contraband and blockade and as to the specific 
treatment of straits and canals, ought not to be 
difficult to settle if, as every belligerent professes, 
the ruling desire is for the establishment of a per- 
manent peace. 

The importance of the freedom and safety of the 
ocean pathways^ was impressively stated by Sir 
Robert Laird Borden, Premier of Canada, in a 
speech delivered on November 18 in New York. 
Sir Robert Borden stated that the lesson of the war 
was twofold: "First, that the liberty, the security, 
and the free existence of our empire are depen- 
dent upon the safety of the ocean pathways, whether 
in peace or war; next, that while sea power can- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 33 

not of itself be the instrument of world domination, 
it is nevertheless the most powerful instrument by 
which world domination can be effectually resisted. 
Three hundred years ago it forever crushed arro- 
gant pretensions then brought forward to control 
western trade routes and to exclude therefrom the 
free nations of the world. Little more than a cen- 
tury ago it maintained freedom against world dom- 
ination by a single military system. To-day it re- 
mains the shield of the same freedom, and it will so 
continue. This burden of so tremendous a respon- 
sibility must not rest upon Britain alone, but upon 
the greater commonwealth which comprises all the 
King's dominions." 

Would it not be even better and would not Great 
Britain be still more secure if this burden were 
borne by the great commercial nations of the world 
linked together for the purpose of securing the free- 
dom of the seas as an instrument and incident of a 
durable peace ? 

The common sense of mankind, however, will not 
be satisfied with any definition of freedom of the 
seas in time of war which does not frankly put in 
the category of murder such amazing barbarities as 
history will recall whenever the words Lusitania 
and Sussex are mentioned. 



VI 



FRANCE IN THE WAR THE AIMS OF FRANCE I RESTI- 
TUTION, REPARATION AND NATIONAL SECURITY 

A METHOD OF SECURING REPARATION THAT 

WILL AID A DURABLE PEACE 

IF it be assumed that Great Britain and Ger- 
many, together with their several allies, could 
come to an agreement as to the specific ap- 
plications of the principle that every nation has a 
right to free development and that there should 
be freedom of the seas in the sense heretofore de- 
scribed, what conditions of a durable peace would 
remain to be considered ? 

This war has made France the hero of the na- 
tions. Whether she be judged by military prowess 
or by power of national organization and national 
self-control, the French Republic has so revealed 
itself as to excite the unstinted admiration and to 
call forth the unbounded affection of the world at 
large. The evidence clearly proves that France 
was in no respect an aggressor in the present war. 
She herself was promptly attacked, in part because 
she was the ally of Russia, in part because she was 
on good terms with England, and in part because 
the plans of the German General Staff required 
that the French Army be broken up and destroyed 
first of all. That France was unprepared for war, 
and, therefore, was not contemplating war, has 

34 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 35 

been obvious to every one since August i, 19 14. 
For one full year her devoted armies were called 
upon to hold back the great host of invaders with 
only partial equipment and without a large part 
of the necessary instruments of successful modern 
war. The military genius of General Joffre and his 
colleagues, together with the heroic bravery of the 
army itself, performed a veritable miracle at the 
battle of the Marne, and they have been perform- 
ing a succession of miracles from that day to this. 
As a fighting force the French Army has gained 
new laurels, and behind the army stands the French 
people, calm, confident, and clear-sighted as to the 
ends for which the nation is maintaining and prose- 
cuting its defense. 

Every serious-minded and responsible French- 
man intends, if it be humanly possible, to make 
this the last war. The inspiration of that hope 
leads the French fathers and mothers to bear with 
an exalted resignation the loss of their sons. It is 
the inspiration of this hope which calls out the 
limitless sacrifice of women and the effort even of 
the aged and the infirm. 

France seeks three things as the result of this 
last of wars. These have been defined by one of 
her representative public men as restitution, repara- 
tion, and national security. President Poincare, 
in his address on July 14, 1916, when the war had 
been nearly two years in progress, stated the French 
aims a little more fully. Reviewing the sufferings 
and sorrows of France, he insisted in eloquent 



36 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

words that these would never weaken the nation's 
will. He reasserted the nation's horror of war and 
its passionate devotion to those policies which 
would prevent any return of the conditions that 
now prevailed, and he then defined the essentials 
of that just and permanent peace for which France 
longs and which it is determined to gain. These 
conditions were, first, the complete restitution of 
invaded French territory, whether this territory 
had been invaded just now or forty-six years ago; 
second, reparation for violations of law and for 
injuries done to citizens of France or its allies; 
and, third, such guarantees as might be necessary 
definitely to safeguard the national independence 
in the future. M. Briand, President of the Council, 
has more than once reiterated these views. They 
may, therefore, be taken as an official statement 
of the terms on which, and on which alone, France 
will make peace. 

Are these terms unreasonable, and is France 
justified in the eyes of the world in continuing to 
the bitter end the struggle to secure them ? 

It will be simplest to examine these three pro- 
posed conditions in reverse order to that in which 
they are stated by President Poincare. 

The guarantees for the future to which the Presi- 
dent refers are the crux of the whole matter. Sev- 
eral times in these discussions reference has been 
made to an international guarantee of national 
security in the future, and in due time the question 
will be raised as to how this international guarantee 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 37 

may be secured and in what it should consist. 
France is certainly entitled to the protection of 
this guarantee. It can and should be the same 
guarantee that will protect Belgium, Serbia, a 
reconstituted Poland, or any other small nation, 
as well as Great Britain, Italy, or Germany itself. 
In this respect, then, the demand of France is one 
that should and must be fairly met. 

Then France demands reparation for violations 
of law and for damage done to her citizens and their 
private property, as well as to those of her allies. 
It may or may not be practicable to secure at the 
close of hostilities and as part of the settlement 
an immediate money indemnity from Germany 
and Austria-Hungary that would satisfy those 
whose territory has been invaded and whose citizens 
in civil life have been killed or injured and their 
property destroyed. Whether it be possible or not 
to secure such an immediate money indemnity, 
there is perhaps a better way in which to gain the 
end which France properly seeks. It might readily 
be provided that claims of this" kind should be 
submitted to an impartial International Court of 
Justice, whose findings would be final. The evi- 
dence that Germany has time and time again 
violated the laws of war and the provisions of the 
Hague Conventions, to say nothing of the laws of 
humanity, is quite overwhelming. It is just be- 
cause this evidence is so overwhelming that those 
who have been injured can afford, in the interest 
of a durable peace, to have their claims judicially 



38 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE . 

determined rather than to force the collection of 
an indemnity by sheer weight of military power. 
What the world most thinks of and what the bellig- 
erents themselves should most think of is how the 
settlement of this conflict is to affect the future of 
mankind. Where there are two ways of achieving 
the same end, one a conventional way for which 
there are many precedents, and the other an un- 
conventional way which seeks to set an example 
of better things, then the same spirit which has 
animated and directed France in its military effort 
and in its literally colossal work of national or- 
ganization may guide it to choose a course which 
will most certainly help to define and to secure 
the ideals for which it has been carrying on this 
amazing struggle. 

Whatever may be said of the horrors and atroc- 
ities of the present war, surely one of its most 
remarkable by-products is its effect on the national 
mind, the national conscience, and the national 
will of France. The best in France has come to 
the surface everywhere, and it will probably never 
be possible for the nation to lose the good effects 
and the stimulating results of its effort to maintain 
its integrity and to defend its liberty. During the 
epoch-making days at Vienna in 1815, Talleyrand 
was in the habit of describing as "a good Euro- 
pean," any statesman who was capable of conceiv- 
ing the State system of the Western World as a 
whole. The people of France and French states- 
men generally are and long have been good Euro- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 39 

peans in Talleyrand's sense. This characteristic 
of the French people increases the likelihood that 
they will throw the weight of their great influence 
and example in favor of the establishment, on 
sound foundations, of a new European order. It 
was their own Joubert who so finely said: "Force 
and Right are the governors of this world; Force 
till Right is ready." 

There remains the restitution of French territory 
which is or may be occupied by the enemy. So far 
as concerns those northern and northeastern de- 
partments which are at the moment occupied by 
German military forces, the matter is a compara- 
tively simple one. Germany will assuredly be glad 
enough to retire from present French territory as 
a condition of peace. The question of Alsace- 
Lorraine, however, which became what the Ger- 
mans call Reichsland after the war of 1870, is not 
quite so simple. 



VII 



THE QUESTION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE THE DECLARA- 
TIONS OF 187 1 — FAILURE OF GERMANY'S POLICY 
OF ASSIMILATION 

THERE are some public questions which are 
so wrapped in sentiment that they cannot 
be helpfully treated solely from the stand- 
point of abstract argument. The future of Alsace- 
Lorraine is distinctly such a question. For forty- 
four years the symbolic statue of Strasbourg in the 
Place de la Concorde, surrounded as it has been by 
pathetic evidences of the mournful feeling of the 
French people, has borne eloquent testimony to 
this fact. Should it be said that the future of Al- 
sace-Lorraine is to be settled on the strict principles 
of nationality, and that if so settled the issue would 
be in large part favorable to France, the answer 
is that unless France herself were satisfied there 
would remain planted in the very heart of Europe 
the seeds either of another international war or of 
long generations of international suspicion, hostil- 
ity, and unhappiness. 

In 1870 Mr. Gladstone supported in the British 
Cabinet the view that the transfer of Alsace and 
Lorraine from French to German sovereignty with- 
out reference to the populations could not be re- 
garded in principle as a question between the two 
belligerents only, since it involved considerations of 

40 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 41 

legitimate interest to all the Powers of Europe. He 
pointed out its bearing upon the Belgian question 
and upon those principles which were likely to be of 
great consequence in the eventual settlement of the 
Eastern question. 

The deputies from Alsace and Lorraine who had 
seats in the French National Assembly convoked 
at Bordeaux to settle terms of peace with Germany 
left no one in doubt as to the wishes of those whom 
they represented. On February 17, 187 1, these 
deputies presented to the National Assembly this 
ringing declaration, which had been submitted to 
Gambetta and which had the approval of Victor 
Hugo, Louis Blanc, Edgar Quinet, Clemenceau, and 
other leading members of the republican party: 

Alsace and Lorraine are opposed to alienation. . . . 
These two provinces, associated with France for more than 
two centuries in good and in evil fortune, and constantly ex- 
posed to hostile attack, have consistently sacrificed them- 
selves in the cause of national greatness. They have sealed 
with their blood the indissoluble compact that binds them 
to French unity. Under the present menace of foreign pre- 
tensions, they affirm their unshakable fidelity in the face 
of all obstacles and dangers, even under^the^yoke^of Jthe in- 
vader. With one accord citizens who have remained in their 
homes, as well as soldiers who have hastened to join the 
colors, proclaim, the former by their votes and the latter 
by their action in the field, to Germany and to the world 
the unalterable determination of Alsace and of Lorraine to 
remain French territory. France cannot consent to or de- 
termine by treaty the cession of Alsace and Lorraine. . . . 
We now proclaim as forever inviolable the right of Alsatians 
and Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation, 



42 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

and we pledge ourselves, our compatriots, our children, and 
our children's children, to vindicate that right through all 
time and by all possible ways in the face of those who usurp 
authority over us. 

Nevertheless the National Assembly, under the 
constraint of overwhelming military defeat, accepted 
the treaty of peace on March i. 

It was a solemn and pathetic moment when, be- 
fore withdrawing from the National Assembly, the 
deputies from Alsace and from Lorraine read out 
their famous Protest of Bordeaux: 

We, who, in defiance of all justice, have been given over 
by an odious abuse of power to foreign domination, have a 
last duty to perform. We declare a compact which disposes 
of us without our consent null and void. It will ever remain 
open to each and all of us to claim our rights in such manner 
and in such measure as conscience shall dictate. . .. . Our 
brothers of Alsace and Lorraine, now cut off from the com- 
mon family, will preserve their filial affection for the France 
now absent from their homes until the day when she re- 
turns to take her place there again. 

At a moment's notice intelligent populations 
which had been French for centuries, and whose 
French patriotism and loyalty were most fervent, 
were compelled to accept a new sovereignty and to 
assent, in form at least, to a new allegiance. 

Germany misunderstood from the first the nature 
and extent of her self-imposed task. It was the com- 
mon belief among Germans that the loyalty of Alsace- 
Lorraine to France was in large part superficial, and 
that the beneficent effects of German rule would be 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 43 

so great and so obvious that the populations of these 
provinces would, in a short time, willingly adjust 
themselves to the new conditions. The elder von 
Moltke, whose optimism was not quite so unre- 
strained as that of some others, thought that^Ger- 
many would have to remain fully armed for fifty 
years in order to retain Alsace, but that at the end 
of that period the Alsatians would cease to wish to 
be Frenchmen and the question would thus be solved. 
Time has proved that the fears of Bismarck, the 
statesman, as to the wisdom of this annexation were 
better justified than the confidence of von Moltke, 
the strategist. 

The fifty years have nearly passed. The policy 
of semi-military occupation and of stern repression 
has produced the natural, but not the expected, re- 
sults. There can be no reasonable doubt that the 
great body of the population of Alsace and of Lor- 
raine eagerly await the day when these provinces 
will be restored to their place in the French Republic. 

There is little to be gained from following the 
course of learned historical discussions as to matters 
five hundred or even a thousand years old in the his- 
tory of this territory. As a matter of fact, if appeal 
be made to history, then it must be admitted that 
away back in the Middle Ages Alsace, although 
speaking a Germanic dialect, was within the range 
of the influence and under the domination of French 
culture. It is probably the case that the Gothic 
artists who built the cathedral at Strasbourg either 
came from the He de France or had gained their 



44 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

inspiration there. Politically speaking, this terri- 
tory had been for hundreds of years an object of 
continual strife between the nations which it was 
supposed to hold safely apart. It was in the very 
dubious and dangerous position of a small buffer 
state at a time when the impulse to territorial ex- 
pansion and to the extension of dynastic authority 
ran strong and high. When at the close of the 
Thirty Years' War Alsace sought protection from a 
more powerful state than the Holy Roman Empire 
had shown itself to be, it came under the protection 
of France at the request of its own people. The 
French Revolution and its accompanying wars com- 
pleted the incorporation of Alsace in France and 
solidified in many ways the political relationship al- 
ready a century and a half old, 

There is little use in threshing over old straw now, 
but the forcible wresting of Alsace-Lorraine from 
France in 1871 was a public injury which must now 
be repaired in the only way that it can be repaired, 
namely, by the return of these provinces to France 
where they belong and where they wish to be. This 
is, as Mr. Gladstone said, a matter which affects 
the interests not of France and of Germany alone, 
but those of all Europe and indeed of the whole world. 

The war of 1870 had two immediate results: one, 
the unification of Germany, which was a good result ; 
the second, the separation of Alsace-Lorraine from 
France, which was an evil result. He would be a 
hardy man who to-day would claim that the holding 
of Alsace-Lorraine as Reichsland has contributed to 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 45 

German unity, and he would be a blind man who 
could not see that if a durable peace is to follow this 
war, then Alsace-Lorraine must go back to France. 
As to this, appeal might be made to Treitschke him- 
self, for in speaking of Napoleon's policy of world 
conquest he said : ' ' Such a naked policy of conquest 
in the long run destroys its own instruments. . . . 
It presumes to take possession of countries which 
cannot be fitted into the national state as living 
members." 

One need go no farther to find a justification of 
the demand of France for the return of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. ,If and when they finally admit defeat on the 
field of battle, Germany and her allies assent to the 
return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, they will have 
given the strongest possible evidence, which the 
world will heartily welcome, of their desire and in- 
tention to assist in making and in preserving a peace 
that will be durable because it is just. It is futile to 
suggest as an alternative the incorporation of Al- 
sace-Lorraine in the German Empire with rights 
of autonomy. It is equally futile to propose to ob- 
literate and to overturn old geographical and polit- 
ical distinctions and landmarks by some new align- 
ment of communities. It is futile, too, to suggest 
that Alsace-Lorraine be erected into an independent 
state whose neutrality would be guaranteed by her 
neighbors. All these are ways of not dealing with 
the problem. In the interest, and as part, of a dur- 
able peace Germany must yield back Alsace-Lor- 
raine to France. 



VIII 

RUSSIA AND THE SLAVS — THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT 
IN RUSSIA — THE BOSPORUS AND THE DAR- 
DANELLES 

^ | ^0 the Western World, and to Americans in 
! particular, Russia seems a far-away land. It 
is a land of mystery. Its huge size, its geo- 
graphic uniformity, its phenomenal natural re- 
sources, its heterogeneous populations, its many 
and difficult languages and dialects, its unusual 
calendar, and its strong religious feeling all give 
it a character of its own. Occupying more than 
one-sixth of the globe's land surface, Russia con- 
stitutes a twentieth-century bridge between the 
older East and the newer West, and it combines 
in itself striking characteristics of both Orient and 
Occident. 

Stirrings in the body or in the limbs of this huge 
leviathan are long in being recognized and still 
longer in being understood by the outside world. 
Russia's participation in this war and her direct re- 
lation to one of the most important questions that 
the war must settle, make it necessary to gain some 
notion of the part which she is likely to play in the 
world of the future and of what the results of this 
war may bring to her. 

The Latin, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Teuton 

4 6 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 47 

have made their distinctive contributions to our 
common civilization, and it is already possible to 
appraise them with some definiteness. The Slav, 
however, has yet to make his full contribution to 
the general store of the world's intellectual and 
political capital. Significant words were spoken 
by Count Mouravieff when he said: "I believe 
that Russia has a civilizing mission such as no other 
people in the world, not only in Asia, but also in 
Europe. . . . We Russians bear upon our shoulders 
the new age; we come to relieve the tired men." 
This is a fine picture and a stirring prophecy. 

The present war has not only put hopelessly 
out of date the various arguments and considera- 
tions that have for a century been brought to bear 
on what Europe knows as the Eastern question, 
but it has forced to the front with striking clearness 
the one dominant fact that, in the interest of a 
durable peace, Russia must control the straits 
which lead from the Black Sea to the ^Egean. 
Not to give this control to Russia would mean, 
first, that her people, restless and in large part 
economically ice-bound, would not feel that the 
conditions of peace were permanent; and, second, 
it would mean the possibility of the extension at 
any future moment of Germany's political system 
and Machtpolitik to the Balkan Peninsula, to Asia 
Minor, and beyond. It is just because these facts 
are clearly understood by the Allies that military 
and naval operations have been, and are being, 
carried on in the southeastern theatre of war. The 



48 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

importance which Germany and her allies attach 
to them is made evident by the fact that com- 
manders of the high competence of Falkenhayn 
and Mackensen are conducting in person the opera- 
tions against Rumania. 

It has more than once been hinted that the Ger- 
man Emperor holds the conviction that some day 
the world will divide itself into two great camps, 
the one speaking the Slavonic and the other speak- 
ing the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic tongues, and 
that the great yellow races of the East will join 
the Slavs and so bring the world face to face with 
a contest between two widely different and his- 
torically opposed civilizations. If this was a shrewd 
forecast ten years ago, it is far less likely now. 
Russia is increasingly Western in thought and in 
domestic policy. The rigid censorship, more severe 
than ever since the outbreak of war, keeps from 
us an exact or complete knowledge of what is tak- 
ing place in the political and social order of the Rus- 
sian Empire. It would be no less cruel than igno- 
rant to suppose that Russia is a nation given over 
entirely to corrupt officials and to a barbarous police, 
to irreconcilable socialists and to lawbreaking an- 
archists. Catherine, who in this respect played for 
Russia somewhat the same part that Frederick the 
Great did for Prussia, introduced into Russian life 
and thought some of the personal, literary, and 
philosophical influences which aided so effectively 
in bringing on the French Revolution. These in- 
fluences have been at work in Russia ever since. 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 49 

They have been colored and modified by the eco- 
nomic and social conditions prevailing there, and they 
have taken on some of that sombreness and senti- 
ment which are revealed in Russian literature, Rus- 
sian art, and Russian music. The progress of in- 
ternal political development has assuredly been slow, 
and it has met with many and hard setbacks, but 
with the traditional forms of local self-government 
to build upon it has in later years made some sub- 
stantial advances. There can be little doubt that 
the events and necessities of the war have aided this 
movement materially, and it is more than probable 
that when Russia unites with her allies in establish- 
ing the terms of a durable peace she will, at the same 
time, be able to announce significant changes in her 
internal organization and policies. 

/Those who have not known Russia may take 
encouragement from the recent words of M. B. 
Bourtzeff, active and influential in every Russian 
progressive movement. "Even we," he wrote, 
"the adherents of the parties of the Extreme Left, 
and hitherto ardent anti-militarists and pacifists, 
even we believe in the necessity of this war. This 
war is a war to protect justice and civilization. It 
will, we hope, be a decisive factor in our united 
war against war, and we hope that, after it, it will 
at last be possible to consider seriously the ques- 
tion of disarmament and of universal peace. . . . 
To Russia this war will bring regeneration. We 
are convinced that after this war there will no 
longer be any room for political reaction, and Rus- 



50 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

sia will be associated with the existing group of 
cultured and civilized countries." 

The Tsar's manifesto of October 30, 1905, fur- 
nishes the point of - departure for further prog- 
ress in the development and definition of Russian 
civil liberty. The first article of that manifesto 
reads: "The population is to be given the inviolable 
foundation of civil rights based on the actual in- 
violability of the person, freedom of belief, of speech, 
of organization, and of meeting." It will, therefore, 
in all likelihood be a more unified, a more vigorous, 
as well as a freer and a more tolerant Russia that 
will emerge from the present conflict. Prince 
Gorchakof once said: "La Russie ne boude pas; 
elle se recueille." A kindly and sympathetic world 
hopefully awaits the result. 

It has been said of the Eastern question that it 
has as many heads as a hydra. The present war 
has been the Hercules which has cut off all these 
heads but three. These three remaining heads are: 
first, the organization of the peoples of the Balkan 
Peninsula on the basis of nationality under an 
international guarantee of their national security; 
second, the erection of a barrier against the pos- 
sible extension of German Machtpolitik to Asia 
Minor and its adjoining lands and seas — the Drang 
nach Osten — and, third, the possession of the Bos- 
porus, the Dardanelles, and the adjoining shores 
by Russia as a necessary element of her economic 
independence and her national security. 

The first of these topics need not be further dis- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 51 

cussed. It is covered by what has already been 
said as to the application of the principles of na- 
tionality and the protection of the rights of small 
nations. The second is one of the necessary results 
of the present war. From one, and a very im- 
portant, point of view the Allies are fighting, not 
the German people, but to prevent the extension 
over other lands and other peoples of those polit- 
ical theories, doctrines, and practices which the 
German people have for the time at least made 
their own. If there is to be a durable peace, and 
one which will justify the sacrifices that the Allies 
have already made, then every door to a syste- 
matic and studied extension of Germany's political 
influence must of necessity be locked. In Germany 
this suggestion will be denounced as one more 
example of the Einkreisungspolitik from which she 
has already suffered so much. It must, however, 
be borne in mind that in these discussions all pos- 
sible emphasis has been laid upon the maintenance 
of the open door in international trade. German 
trade, therefore, would be in no wise hampered if 
these suggestions were followed, but the active 
propaganda in other countries on behalf of Ger- 
man political ideas and German political control 
would be stopped. This policy would remove the 
greatest present cause of war without introducing 
a new one to take its place. 

The third topic appears to be vital to Russia 
and, therefore, to the peace of the world. A glance 
at the map and a modest knowledge of political 



52 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

and economic history will explain the persistence of 
Russia in seeking access to the seas at points that 
are open to navigation throughout the year. From 
her central plains she has thrown out three arms or 
tentacles, one of prodigious length, with a view to 
the uninterrupted use of the ocean highways by 
her commerce. The Trans-Siberian Railway has 
been thrown across the steppes of Asia in order 
to reach the Pacific. Russia's diplomacy in regard 
to Persia, to British India, and to Turkey has 
steadily had in mind to secure an outlet to the 
waters of the Persian Gulf. The third arm or 
tentacle is reaching out through the Black Sea to 
the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. With Russia 
established there, under the international condi- 
tions which these discussions propose, her economic 
independence would be secure, the world's sources 
of food supply would be greatly increased, and the 
principles for which the Allies are fighting would 
gain a material guarantee of the first importance. 

It is already assumed in Russia that both Eng- 
land and France will agree, at the conclusion of 
the war, to the annexation by Russia both of Con- 
stantinople and of the adjoining straits. In March, 
1915, the important liberal journal of Moscow, 
Russkia Viedomosti, published an article by Prince 
Eugene Troubetzko'i, which is known to have 
exercised a very strong influence in Russia, and to 
have given expression to the prevailing opinion 
among all classes in the empire. Prince Troubetzko'i 
flatly says that the only solution which fairly meets 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 53 

the nation's interests is that Constantinople and the 
straits should become Russian. A like opinion has 
been expressed by M. MilioukofT, whose leading 
position among the Russian Liberals is well known. 
It would appear, then, that before long some of 
the most serious blunders of both British and Rus- 
sian diplomacy in the nineteenth century may be 
remedied and the whole world be the gainer there- 
by. Mr. Gladstone assailed Lord Beaconsfield and 
Lord Salisbury for having spoken at the Berlin 
Congress in 1878 in the tones of Metternich, and 
not in the tones of Mr. Canning, of Lord Palmerston, 
and of Lord Russell. He insisted that their voice 
was not heard in unison with the institutions, the 
history, and the character of England. Was he 
wrong ? 



IX 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM — ITS BASIS AND ITS CAUSE — 
HOW FAR IT MAY BE CONTROLLED BY CON- 
QUEST 

THE ground that has now been traversed in- 
cludes the outline of a settlement of the 
issues of the war that would secure the free 
national development of every state whether great 
or small, the policy of the open door in international 
trade, the exemption of private property at sea, 
other than contraband, from capture or destruction, 
and that would restore Alsace-Lorraine to France 
as well as make Russia mistress of the Dardanelles 
and the Bosporus. There is one other subject 
mentioned by Mr. Asquith in his Guildhall Declara- 
tion, but not referred to by Viscount Grey, which is 
constantly in the minds of the Allies, and which 
never fails to be mentioned when conditions of a 
lasting peace are discussed. In Mr. Asquith' s own 
words: "We shall never sheathe the sword, which we 
have not lightly drawn, . . . until the military 
domination of Prussia is wholly and finally de- 
stroyed." Mr. Asquith chooses his words, and par- 
ticularly his adjectives and adverbs, with more 
scrupulous care than any other statesman of our 
time. His statement, therefore, is of primary im- 
portance. A > 

Prussian military domination rests first upon 

54 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 55 

Prussia's military policy and its fixed habit of 
thinking of all questions of foreign policy in terms 
of military power and of that alone, as well as upon 
the vast population of the German Empire which 
supplies the needed men to keep in effective organi- 
zation huge armies ready to move at command. The 
fact that Prussia has a system of universal training 
and universal military service has little or noth- 
ing to do with its military domination. Switzerland 
has substantially the same thing, and no one thinks 
of the Swiss as other than a people devoted to the 
ways of peace. A Swiss army of the same size as 
that of Prussia would not give to Switzerland the 
military domination which Prussia has until just 
now enjoyed. The reason is that military domina- 
tion does not consist chiefly, or indeed at all, in 
potential military power, but rather in the attitude 
of the public mind toward the military system and 
the army, and in the relative importance assigned 
to force and to right in weighing and deciding upon 
matters of international policy. In other words, 
militarism is a state of mind. Prussian militarism 
is a Prussian state of mind, and in so far as the Ger- 
man people as a whole have accepted the Prussian 
state of mind as a sound or as a necessary one Ger- 
many is just now a militaristic nation. Of course, 
this was not always so. The South German people 
from time immemorial have been poets and artists, 
kindly and gentle in their manners and without 
overruling ambitions to conquer and to reform the 
world. The Prussian hegemony, while certainly 



56 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

necessary to bring about and to insure German 
unity, has brought not a few evils in its train. One 
of the chief of these is the extension to the South 
German folk of the Prussian point of view together 
with Prussian leadership. 

The history of Prussia is a record of extraordinary 
success in making the most of a meagre beginning, 
and in extending Prussian rule by sheer force of 
will, might, and administrative effectiveness. Prus- 
sia may well be proud of her accomplishment dur- 
ing the past hundred years, both in creating a new 
and highly efficient administrative system and in 
extending her influence and rule over other members 
of the Germanic family. Prussia has always been a 
militaristic state, and has never put off the military 
uniform even when creating and developing a stu- 
pendous industrial and commercial system. Prussia 
has always conceived of history as a struggle between 
either the Teuton and the Slav, the Teuton and the 
Frank, the Teuton and the Anglo-Saxon, or the 
Teuton and somebody else. She always thinks of 
the Teuton as fighting. She studies her neighbors 
not in terms of friendship and co-operation, but in 
terms of rivalry and fear. These have always been 
the characteristics of Prussia; and as the modern 
European system developed, and Prussian thought 
came under the control of a new and almost ecstatic 
political philosophy which placed Prussia at the 
pinnacle of history's greatness, sharply marked off 
by its inherent superiority from the remaining 
world, it was but a short step to the conviction, 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 57 

perfectly sincere, that it would be good for the re- 
maining world to be brought under the domination 
of the Prussian political philosophy. To a normal 
Prussian the army seemed the best and most nat- 
ural agent for use in this process of world salvation. 
Men otherwise sober and self-contained, scholars 
otherwise learned and highly trained, men of af- 
fairs otherwise practical and shrewd to the point of 
cunning, became enamoured of the vista which was 
thus spread out before them. When Houston Cham- 
berlain told the Prussians that they were the modern 
elect, his tribute was received as a matter of course 
and as being fully deserved. To the onlooker there 
is in all this an absence of saving humor to a degree 
that is almost incredible; nevertheless it is the com- 
bination of Prussian history, Prussian pride, Prus- 
sian political philosophy, and Prussian lack of humor 
that has created what is known as Prussian militar- 
ism. It is this curiously composite and elusive but 
yet terribly real thing which Mr. Asquith demands 
shall be brought to an end. 

How can this be done ? Prussian military domina- 
tion is ended as far as the rest of the world is con- 
cerned when the German armies are defeated, and 
when the military force of the Allies proves itself 
adequate not only to restrain the German armies 
from further advance, but to drive them back upon 
their own territory broken and defeated. ' This, 
however, can hardly be the whole of the end which 
Mr. Asquith has in mind. So far as Prussian mili- 
tarism is a menace to Europe because of its power, 



58 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

its zeal, and its determination in attack, it can and 
will be restrained by the outcome of this war. In 
so far, however, as Prussian militarism is a state of 
mind it cannot be exorcised by any forcible process 
whatsoever. It can be got rid of only by a change 
of heart on the part of the German people themselves. 
Herein lies the hope of the future and herein is an 
essential element of a durable peace. 

There is an analogy which Americans should not 
overlook between the condition in which Prussia will, 
according to all signs, shortly find itself and the con- 
dition in which the Southern States of the American 
Union were left at the close of the Civil War. Though 
defeated on the field of battle, the leaders of South- 
ern opinion and the men and women of the South 
generally never changed their minds as to the jus- 
tice and correctness of the cause for which they 
fought so bravely. For a whole generation after Ap- 
pomattox they spoke of "the lost cause," and while 
they admitted the cause was lost, they continued to 
insist that it had been just. After fifty years con- 
ditions have so changed that all this is largely a 
matter of history. Men who fought face to face in 
the opposing armies can, and often do, discuss with 
the utmost calmness and in the friendliest possible 
spirit the causes and issues of the conflict that shook 
the Union to its foundations from 1 86 1-5. The 
lesson would appear to be that when Germany is 
defeated she will not of necessity — and, indeed, prob- 
ably will not at all — change her mind as to the cor- 
rectness of her position in this war and as to the jus- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 59 

tice of her cause. But, as in the case of the South, 
after a half-century has passed this will be only a 
matter of academic discussion and debate. Prussian 
militarism will be overthrown so far as the Allies' 
armies can overthrow it when Germany is brought 
to join in arrangements for a durable peace on the 
basis of justice. 

The German people themselves must do the rest. 
It is probably true that whatever may have been 
the German Emperor's personal preferences in July, 
1 9 14, this war would never have taken place had 
the revolutionary movement of 1848 resulted differ- 
ently in Germany. The failure of that movement, 
involving as it did the emigration to America of a 
considerable body of German Liberals and the slow 
elimination from German public life of that power- 
ful and constructive type of Liberal found in every 
other European country, left Germany without the 
strong impulse toward democratic policies which the 
revolution of 1688 gave to England and the revolu- 
tion of 1789 to France. With the disappearance of 
the German Liberal the line of demarcation between 
the ultra-Conservative on the one hand and the 
advanced Socialist on the other became increasingly 
sharp, and under the benign possibilities of the Prus- 
sian electoral system and of the Imperial German 
Constitution the power of the ultra- Conservative 
element has been maintained even in the face of a 
large increase in the number of Socialists. It is this 
ultra- Conservative element in Germany, with its 
dominant philosophy of life and of politics, that has 



60 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

come into conflict with the liberal nations of the 
Western World. Just as Napoleon by the sheer 
force of his personality and his military genius 
gathered into his own' hands for twenty years all 
the power and the energy of post-revolutionary 
France, so the ultra- Conservative Prussian has 
gathered into his hands for more than twenty years 
all the power and energy of non-revolutionized Ger- 
many. 

Following Waterloo, Napoleon's throne quickly 
tottered and fell.. After a few years of stagnation 
and reaction France resumed its forward post- 
revolutionary progress until it became the French 
Republic of to-day. A similar development doubt- 
less lies before Prussia and the German people. 
They themselves must determine what the form 
and the spirit of their own government are to be, 
and no other nation or group of nations, however 
completely victorious, can undertake to change 
it for them without throwing away the very prin- 
ciples for which the war is being waged by them. 
The victory over Prussian militarism considered 
as a state of mind, and the making over of non- 
revolutionized Germany into a more liberal and 
more democratic state, are tasks for the German peo- 
ple themselves. There is no compulsory road to re- 
pentance. It is incredible that a people of their 
intellectual force, discipline, power of organization, 
and scientific competence should not in due time 
view the democratic movement precisely as France 
and Great Britain have viewed it. When this comes 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 61 

about, Germany will displace her Machtpolitik for 
the Interessenpolitik upon which Bismarck laid such 
constant stress. She will, to use another of Bis- 
marck's striking phrases, again justly measure "das 
Gewicht der Imponderabilien," and moral law will 
be recognized as applying to the conduct of her 
public policies as well as to that of her private life. 

It is true that Prussian militarism must be wholly 
and finally destroyed before the peace of the world 
will be really secure, but inasmuch as it can only be 
wholly and finally destroyed by the German people 
themselves, the war need not be continued until 
that end is accomplished. All that the Allies can 
do toward the destruction of Prussian military 
domination is to confine it to Germany. When so 
confined it will disappear not slowly, but relatively 
fast by reason of its own weight and untimeliness. 

There is, however, one way in which Prussian 
militarism might emerge victorious even if the Ger- 
man armies are finally defeated on the field of bat- 
tle — that is, if the spirit and policies of Prussian 
militarism should conquer the mind of Great Britain 
or that of any other allied Power. A Hymn of 
Hate is as unlovely when sung in English as when 
sung in German. The destruction of liberal policies 
and practices under the guise of national necessity 
differs but little from "die Not kennt kein Gebot," 
with which Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg de- 
fended the ravishing of Belgium. The Allies, and 
particularly^Great Britain, have urgent need to be 
on their guard that when they are defeating Prus- 



62 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

sian militarism on the field of battle, it does not gain 
new and striking victories over them in the field of 
ideas. A durable peace requires that Prussian mili- 
tarism be wholly and finally destroyed; first, by the 
allied armies in the field; second, by the German 
people in their domestic policies; and, third, by the 
allied Powers in keeping it from invading their own 
political systems. 



X 



THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF A NEW INTER- 
NATIONAL ORDER THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF 

NATIONS THE INTERNATIONAL MIND INTER- 
NATIONAL LAW AS NATIONAL LAW 

AFTER what has gone before, it is not neces- 
r\ sary to pass in extended review those as- 
pects of a durable peace which are of most 
immediate concern to Italy and to what may, 
without disrespect, be termed the other minor 
belligerent Powers. If it is reasonable to expect 
Great Britain, France, and Russia to make their 
own the principles and policies already laid down, 
and if it is also reasonable to expect Germany to 
accept them — save in so far as the giving up of 
Alsace-Lorraine to France, the assumption by 
Russia of jurisdiction over the Bosporus and the 
Dardanelles, and the restriction of what is called 
Prussian militarism to the German Empire, there 
to be dealt with by the German people in their 
own way and in their own time, are compulsory as 
the price of peace when the military victory of the 
Allies is admitted — then it is time to consider the 
foundations of a new international order sanctioned 
and protected by international law and supported 
by an international guarantee so definite and so 
powerful that it cannot and will not be lightly at- 
tacked or shaken in the future by any Power. 

63 



64 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

This new international order will, it is hoped and 
believed, justify the assertion which Mr. Gladstone 
made, too confidently as it proved, nearly fifty 
years ago, when he said: "The greatest triumph 
of our time has been the enthronement of the idea 
of public right as the governing idea of European 
politics." 

There can be no question that the idea of public 
right has taken strong root in the minds of the 
smaller nations and in those of Great Britain and 
France as well. Following this war it will be the 
opportunity and the duty of every lover of liberty, 
of justice, and of peace to labor to extend the rule 
of public right not alone over the politics of Europe, 
but over those of the whole world. 

In order to find a point of beginning there must 
be an agreement, assented to by all the great Powers, 
including the United States and Japan, as to what 
are the fundamental rights and duties of nations. 
On January 6, 191 6, the American Institute of In- 
ternational Law, consisting of representatives of 
every one of the American republics in session at 
Washington, adopted a statement as to the rights 
and duties of nations which it would be hard to 
improve. It is this: 

1. Every nation has the right to exist, and to protect and 
to conserve its existence; but this right neither implies the 
right nor justifies the act of the state to protect itself or to 
conserve its existence by the commission of unlawful acts 
against innocent and unoffending states. 

2. Every nation has the right to independence in the sense 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 65 

that it has a right to the pursuit of happiness and is free to 
develop itself without interference or control from other 
states, provided that in so doing it does not interfere with 
or violate the rights of other states. 

3. Every nation is in law and before law the equal of 
every other nation belonging to the society of nations, and 
all nations have the right to claim and, according to the 
Declaration of Independence of the United States, "to as- 
sume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and 
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's 
God entitle them." 

4. Every nation has the right to territory within defined 
boundaries and to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its 
territory, and all persons, whether native or foreign, found 
therein. 

5. Every nation entitled to a right by the law of nations 
is entitled to have that right respected and protected by all 
other nations, for right and duty are correlative, and the 
right of one is the duty of all to observe. 

6. International law is at one and the same time both 
national and international: national in the sense that it is 
the law of the land and applicable as such to the decision 
of all questions involving its principles; international in the 
sense that it is the law of the society of nations and appli- 
cable as such to all questions between and among the mem- 
bers of the society of nations involving its principles. 

Should this declaration be generally agreed to, 
and should the necessary steps be taken to make 
it effective, it will hardly be disputed that as the 
outcome of the present war the world will be carried 
further forward on the road to a durable peace 
than even the most optimistic would have thought 
possible a decade ago. At the same time care must 
be taken not to put too much reliance upon formal 



66 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

declarations and upon the machinery of even the 
most approved international system. More im- 
portant than the declaration of rights and duties 
of nations, and more important than the machinery 
which may be erected to give that declaration 
vitality and force, is the spirit of the peoples who 
unite in taking these steps. What the world is 
waiting for and what it must achieve before the 
foundations of a durable peace are securely laid is 
what Nicholas Murray Butler has called the inter- 
national mind, which he defines as "nothing else 
than that habit of thinking of foreign relations and 
business, and that habit of dealing with them, 
which regard the several nations of the civilized 
world as friendly and co-operating equals in aiding 
the progress of civilization, in developing com- 
merce and industry, and in spreading enlighten- 
ment and culture throughout the world." 

Once this point of view is gained and this code 
of international morals accepted, then all dreams 
of world conquest will fade forever, as well as all 
schemes to extend Anglo-Saxon, or Latin, or Teu- 
tonic, or Slavonic culture over the whole world. 
The several stones in the structure of civilization 
will differ in size, in character, and in the weight 
that they support, but each one of them will do 
its part. 

The several nations now at war and those neutral 
nations that will join them in bringing about a 
new international order could do no better than 
adopt as their platform the eloquent words of the 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 67 

declaration made by Elihu Root when Secretary of 
State of the United States in the presence of the 
official delegates of the American republics ac- 
credited to the third Pan American Conference 
held at Rio de Janeiro on July 31, 1906, which 
stirred the heart of every American republic and 
which sounded the note of a genuinely new inter- 
national freedom : 

We wish for no victories but those of peace, for no terri- 
tory except our own, for no sovereignty except the sover- 
eignty over ourselves. We deem the independence and equal 
rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of 
nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest 
empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the 
chief guarantee of the weak against the oppression of the 
strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights, or privi- 
leges, or powers that we do not freely concede to every 
American republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to 
expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in 
spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish 
this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but 
to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common 
growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together. 

The declaration that international law is at one 
and the same time both national and international 
has far-reaching and very practical significance for 
the work of building a new international order. 
The courts of Great Britain, beginning with Lord 
Chancellor Talbot in 1733, and including Lord 
Chief Justice Mansfield in 1764, have held that the 
law of nations is part of the common law of Eng- 
land. Sir William Blackstone supported this doc- 



68 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

trine in his classic commentaries. This doctrine 
holds good as well in the United States as in Great 
Britain, a fact to which both Thomas Jefferson and 
Alexander Hamilton bore convincing testimony. 
In the lifetime of the present generation the United 
States Supreme Court has held that international 
law is part of our law, and that, in order to ascer- 
tain and administer it in cases where there is no 
treaty and no controlling executive or legislative 
act or judicial decision, resort must be had to the 
customs and usages of civilized nations. A suf- 
ficient legal basis is, therefore, already at hand for 
the bringing into being at the close of the war of 
a new international order that will include the 
United States in its scope. An international order 
of the effective kind here contemplated calls for 
the establishment of an International Court of 
Justice. The next step, then, is to discuss the 
constitution and the functions of such a court and 
to recall what progress had been made before Au- 
gust i, 1 9 14, toward bringing it into existence. 



XI 



WORK OF THE FIRST HAGUE CONFERENCE DIS- 
ARMAMENT AND ARBITRATION THE COURT OF 

ARBITRAL JUSTICE 

SPEAKING as a member of the second Peace 
Conference at The Hague on August i, 1907, 
Mr. Joseph H. Choate closed his address in 
support of the American project for a permanent 
court of arbitral justice with these words: "We 
have done much to regulate war, but very little 
to prevent it. Let us unite on this great pacific 
measure and satisfy the world that this second 
Conference really intends that hereafter peace, and 
not war, shall be the normal condition of civilized 
nations." Mr. Choate's language may well serve 
as the text for a discussion of the form and juris- 
diction of such an International Court of Justice as 
will contribute most powerfully to a durable peace. 

It is desirable to make clear the important dis- 
tinction between a real court and an arbitral tribu- 
nal, and not to permit ourselves to confuse the one 
with the other. 

The history of the principle of international 
arbitration and its various applications is a long 
and interesting one, but it is not necessary to re- 
count or to examine it here. At the first Peace 
Conference at The Hague international arbitration 
was not originally a matter of main concern. The 

69 



yo THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

Russian circular note proposing that Conference, 
which was held in 1899, dealt almost entirely with 
the desirability of reducing armaments or at least 
of checking their rapid growth. In a few striking 
sentences this note, which, coming from Russia, 
took the whole world by surprise, pointed out how 
national culture, economic progress, and the pro- 
duction of wealth were being either paralyzed or 
perverted in. their development by the huge ex- 
penditures upon " terrible engines of destruction, 
which though to-day regarded as the last word in 
science are destined to-morrow to lose all value in 
consequence of some fresh discovery in the same 
field." Moreover, continued the note, "in pro- 
portion as the armaments of each Power increase 
so do they less and less attain the object aimed 
at by the Governments. ... It appears evident, 
then, that if this state of affairs be prolonged it 
will inevitably lead to the very cataclysm which 
it is desired to avert, and the impending horrors 
of which are fearful to every human thought." 
In this note the subject of arbitration was not 
specifically mentioned, although it may fairly be 
urged that the principle of the judicial settlement 
of international disputes was latent in the expres- 
sion of the hope that such a Conference as was pro- 
posed would result in an agreement among the 
nations to unite in "a solemn avowal of the prin- 
ciples of equity and law, upon which repose the 
security of states and the welfare of peoples." If 
the nations are to agree upon an avowal of belief 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 71 

in certain controlling principles of equity and law, 
then it would seem that they must be prepared to 
construct an institution for the application of these 
principles to specific cases of international differ- 
ence, and such an institution could only be what 
the world knows as a court. 

When the adhesion of the leading Powers had 
been secured to the principle that such an inter- 
national Conference as the Russian Government 
proposed should be held, Count MouraviefT, Rus- 
sian Foreign Minister, submitted a programme for 
the Conference containing eight topics. The last 
of these related to the acceptance in principle of 
the use of good offices, mediation, and voluntary 
arbitration in cases where they were available with 
the purpose of preventing armed conflict between 
nations, together with an understanding in relation 
to their mode of application, and the establishment 
of a uniform practice in applying them. As the 
event proved, it was this topic and not any ques- 
tion of the reduction of armaments that most en- 
gaged the attention of the first Hague Conference. 
It was quickly felt, not only by the delegates to 
the Conference, but by the public opinion of the 
whole world, that, generous and humane as were 
the motives of the Tsar in inviting an international 
Conference to consider a limitation of armaments, 
this question did not furnish either the wisest or 
the most practical mode of approach to the solu- 
tion of the problem of establishing a new inter- 
national order by means of which peace would 



72 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

be better secured. It was seen and generally ad- 
mitted that armaments are themselves an effect 
and not a cause, that they are the instruments 
with which war is- waged, but that armaments 
alone do not declare or directly provoke war. There- 
fore to attempt to limit armaments, while leaving 
untouched the real causes of war and the real in- 
centives to international jealousy and hostility, 
would be to put the cart before the horse. 

By such a policy war would not be prevented, 
but it would be carried on, in all probability, at a 
greatly increased cost in human life and human 
treasure because of the necessity of improvising 
at short notice a great series of military and naval 
instrumentalities with which to conduct a war 
that was the outgrowth of international jealousy, in- 
ternational ambition, or international greed. There 
can be no doubt that a competitive race in arma- 
ments among nations is an economic and moral 
disorder that has the gravest consequences, but 
the way in which to cure that disorder is to strike 
at its causes and not merely at its symptoms. Its 
causes lie deep in human nature and in national 
pride and ambition. There is no practical way to 
lessen the likelihood of international war and to 
insure a consequent steady diminution in military 
and naval armaments except one which will bring 
the public opinion of the great nations of the world 
more and more to the support of the principle that 
international differences may and should be judi- 
cially examined and determined. 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 73 

For these reasons the work of the first Hague 
Conference is not only commendable, but stands 
as a notable landmark in the history of the progress 
of better international relations. Americans, Eng- 
lishmen, and Frenchmen may well be proud that 
in establishing that Court of Arbitral Justice, 
which was the chief permanent result of the first 
Hague Conference, the initiative was taken and 
the greatest influence in carrying the project to a 
successful issue exercised by Doctor Andrew D. 
White and Frederick W. Holls, Chairman and 
Secretary, respectively, of the American delegation; 
by Lord, then Sir Julian, Pauncefote, Chairman of 
the British delegation; and by MM. Leon Bour- 
geois, d'Estournelles de Constant, and Renault, 
the three chief representatives of the French Repub- 
lic. Doctor White's personal letter to von Bulow, 
then Imperial German Chancellor, written under 
date of June 16, 1899, may well prove to be one of 
the most important documents in modern diplo- 
matic history. That letter, together with the per- 
sonal influence in Germany of Doctor White and 
of Mr. Holls, who was its bearer, persuaded the 
German Emperor and the Chancellor to withdraw 
their opposition to any recognition of the principle 
of arbitration and so secured the adhesion of Ger- 
many to the final act of the Conference. When a 
real International Court of Justice comes to be 
established, it may be found that the support both 
of official Germany and of German public opinion, 
if given, may be traceable in large part to the ac- 



74 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

tion taken by the German Emperor and his Chancel- 
lor in 1899, at the urgent and most persuasive so- 
licitation of Doctor White. 

The first Hague Conference did not really estab- 
lish a court in the sense in which that word is gen- 
erally understood, but it did make great progress 
toward the establishment of such a court, and 
toward preparing the public mind for farther and 
more definite steps. It was no small achievement 
to have the powers unite, as they then did, in the 
declaration that they would use their best efforts 
to insure the pacific settlement of international 
differences with a view to obviating as far as pos- 
sible recourse to force in the relations between 
states. They agreed upon admirable provisions for 
good offices and mediation as well as for interna- 
tional commissions of inquiry. They defined in- 
ternational arbitration as having for its object 
"the settlement of disputes between states by 
judges of their own choice and on the basis of re- 
spect for law." It will at once be seen how far this 
falls short of the settlement of disputes between 
states by judges independently chosen, and on the 
basis not alone of respect for law, but of submission 
to law. The permanent Court of Arbitration was 
really nothing more than a panel of men ' ' of known 
competency in questions of international law, of 
the highest moral reputation and disposed to ac- 
cept the duties of arbitrators." Such a tribunal 
as this, wholly dependent for its existence and use- 
fulness upon the concurrence of two disagreeing 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 75 

states in submitting a question to arbitration and 
in agreeing to the choice of individual arbitrators, 
was not a true court. Nevertheless its importance 
must not be minimized, for this tribunal has dealt 
with not a few cases of more than usual difficulty, 
and it has served to accustom the public opinion 
of the civilized world to the spectacle of sovereign 
nations submitting international disputes which had 
not been resolved by the usual diplomatic means 
to inquiry and judgment by arbitrators. 

Mexico and the United States, at the instance 
of President Roosevelt, quickly submitted to this 
tribunal the Pious Fund Case. Shortly afterward 
Germany, Great Britain, and Italy brought before 
it in the Venezuelan Preferential Case their con- 
troversy with the Republic of Venezuela over cer- 
tain pecuniary claims of their subjects. Similarly 
France, Germany, and Great Britain submitted 
to the Hague Tribunal their difference with Japan 
over a matter arising from the extraterritorial 
jurisdiction which prior to 1894 was maintained in 
respect to the citizens of foreign nations resident 
in Japan. The Casablanca Case between France 
and Germany and the Savarkar Case between 
France and Great Britain were similarly considered 
and decided. Doubtless the most important case 
yet heard by this tribunal was the North Atlantic 
Coast Fisheries Case, in which Great Britain and 
the United States were opposing parties in a vexa- 
tious controversy that had lasted for one hundred 
years. 



76 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

It will be seen, therefore, that while the nations 
have not yet established a real International Court 
of Justice, they have taken such long steps toward 
it that it should not be difficult to cover the re- 
maining distance, in view of the vital importance 
of the existence of such a court to an international 
order which aims to secure a durable peace. 



XII 



WORK OF THE SECOND HAGUE CONFERENCE DIS- 
TINCTION BETWEEN AN ARBITRAL COURT AND 
AN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE PRAC- 
TICAL PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A 
REAL COURT ANALOGY BETWEEN AN INTERNA- 
TIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE AND THE SUPREME 
COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

A VIGOROUS attempt to add a real Interna- 
tional Court of Justice to the permanent 
Court of Arbitration that was established 
at The Hague by the Conference of 1899 was made 
at the second Hague Conference, which met in 1907. 
This was largely due to the urgent insistence of the 
American delegation. Their action was taken under 
the explicit instructions of Secretary Root, and it 
achieved a far larger measure of success than is 
generally understood. The point then reached in 
the establishment of a court is the point at which 
to begin when this war is ended. 

In his formal instructions to the American dele- 
gates to that conference Mr. Root pointed out that 
the principal objection to arbitration rests not upon 
the unwillingness of nations to submit their con- 
troversies to impartial arbitration, but upon an 
apprehension that the arbitrations to which they 
submit them may not be really impartial. In other 
words, he pressed upon the American delegates, and 

77 



78 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

through them upon the conference, a clear recog- 
nition of the distinction between the action of judges 
deciding questions of fact and law upon the record 
before them under a sense of judicial responsibility, 
and the action of negotiators effecting settlement 
of questions brought before them in accordance with 
the traditions and usages and subject to all the 
considerations and influences which affect diplomatic 
agents. The one is a judicial determination of a 
disputed question; the other is an attempt to satisfy- 
both contending parties by arriving at some form of 
compromise. Secretary Root pointed to the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, passing with im- 
partial and impersonal judgment upon questions 
arising between citizens of the different States or 
between foreign citizens and citizens of the United 
States, as a type of tribunal to which the nations of 
the world would be much more ready than now to 
submit their various controversies for decision. He 
instructed the American delegates to make an ef- 
fort to bring about a development of the existing 
Hague Tribunal into a permanent court composed 
of judges who are judicial officers and nothing else, 
who are paid adequate salaries, who have no other 
occupation, and who will devote their entire time 
to the trial and decision of international causes by 
judicial methods and under a sense of judicial re- 
sponsibility. He pointed out that the members of 
such a court should be selected from different 
countries in such manner that the different systems 
of law and procedure and the principal languages 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 79 

would be fairly represented. It was Secretary 
Root's expressed hope that this court might be made 
of such dignity, consideration, and rank that the 
best and ablest jurists would accept appointment 
to it, and that the whole world would have absolute 
confidence in its judgments. 

There have been no better definition and descrip- 
tion than those given by Secretary Root of that In- 
ternational Court of Justice which is an essential 
part of any international order that will have a 
durable peace as its aim. Before such a court can 
be brought into existence, however, it is necessary 
to rembve the fears and doubts of those who ques- 
tion whether such a court could really be impartial, 
and therefore judicial. The American, with the 
example of the United States Supreme Court be- 
fore him, and with that conception of an independent 
judiciary which removes judges from executive or 
political control and which gives them authority 
not only to settle disputes between individuals but 
to protect the individual and his constitutional 
rights against invasion by the executive and the 
legislature themselves, has little difficulty in grasp- 
ing the conception of an independent and impartial 
international court. This has also become easier 
for the subject of Great Britain as the later develop- 
ments in the history of the Judicial Committee of 
the Privy Council have shown him grave questions 
of constitutional and international law that arise 
in all parts of the empire being judicially settled by 
that body sitting at Westminster. 



8o THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

To understand what is meant by such a court is 
much more difficult on the part of the citizens or 
subjects of countries in which the judiciary is really 
a part of the general administrative system and not 
an independent body having the authority to pass 
in review the legality of governmental acts. In coun- 
tries where courts have no other function than to 
determine controversies between individuals, and 
where nations have not progressed to the advanced 
position of protecting civil and political liberty by 
judicial process, it is not easy to secure adhesion 
to a project which contemplates bringing the act 
of a Government to the bar of judicial inquiry. 
Probably there is no better or quicker way to bring 
home to the people of Austria-Hungary, of Ger- 
many, and of Russia the purpose and functions of 
such a court as here described than to establish it 
in order that its acts and processes may be their 
own explanation. 

It was by the joint efforts of the delegates from 
Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United 
States that the project for an International Court of 
Justice was approved by the second Hague Con- 
ference on October 16, 1907. Unfortunately the 
Conference could not agree upon the method by 
which the judges of the proposed court were to be 
chosen. Failure to agree on this vital point deprived 
the project for the moment of any practical effect. 
The Conference went so far, however, after having 
adopted the project, as definitely to recommend that 
the court be established as soon as the nations could 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 81 

agree upon a method of appointing judges. The 
German Government has officially declared its readi- 
ness to co-operate in the establishment of this court, 
and the British, French, and American Govern- 
ments have publicly supported the action of their 
representatives at The Hague. These significant 
facts must not be overlooked. 

It is important to bear in mind that the action of 
the second Hague Conference in 1907 was not 
merely the expression of a wish or desire that a 
court should be established, but it was a definite 
recommendation to the Powers to undertake the 
establishment of the court. Ever since the adjourn- 
ment of the second Hague Conference it has, there- 
fore, been easy for any group of nations to agree 
to establish such a court for themselves by coming 
to a common determination as to how its judges 
should be appointed. One hope was that an Inter- 
national Prize Court might be called into existence 
and its jurisdiction gradually enlarged to cover the 
field of an International Court of Justice. It would 
now give great satisfaction to the lovers of justice 
throughout the world if, without waiting for the 
conclusion of the war, the Governments of the Allied 
Powers would publicly announce that as one of the 
terms and conditions of a durable peace they pro- 
posed to unite in the prompt establishment of an 
International Court of Justice substantially as out- 
lined and agreed upon at the second Hague Con- 
ference. Such a declaration on their part would 
emphasize anew the principles of liberty, of order, 



82 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

and of justice for which they are now contending on 
the field of battle, and would turn the thoughts of 
men, when terms of peace are discussed, more and 
more to that justice which must underlie and ac- 
company any peace that is to be durable, and away 
from that vengeance and reprisal which can only 
incite to new wars. 

To take this step should not be difficult, since the 
American Government has been pressing it upon all 
the chief Powers for some years past and has in- 
dicated with definiteness and precision how the nec- 
essary steps may be taken. The work of the Naval 
Conference at London in 1908-9 made a beginning 
in the formulation of some parts of that law which 
the proposed court must interpret and administer. 
The war came, however, before an agreement as 
to the Declaration of London had been finally 
worked out and all further progress was necessarily 
suspended. There has never been a clearer demon- 
stration of the truth of the ancient maxim, "Inter 
arma silent leges." 

As late as January 12, 19 14, Mr. James Brown 
Scott, who as Solicitor for the Department of State 
had been a technical delegate at the second Hague 
Conference, addressed to Mr. Loudon, Minister of 
Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, a letter begging 
him to take the initiative in bringing about the es- 
tablishment of a Court of Arbitral Justice through 
the co-operation of Holland, Germany, the United 
States, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, 
Italy, Japan, and Russia. In this letter, which was 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 83 

written with the approval of Mr. Elihu Root and 
Mr. Robert Bacon, former Secretaries of State, it 
was pointed out that a court constituted through the 
co-operation of these nations would, to all intents 
and purposes, have the advantages and render the 
services of a true international court, and in a very 
short time would probably become a court to which 
every nation would be glad to resort. Before any 
action could be taken the overhanging war-clouds 
burst into storm. 

It is probable that the plan brought forward by 
Mr. Scott is the most practicable and, therefore, the 
one most likely eventually to be followed. An In- 
ternational Court of Justice established by agree- 
ment of the nine nations named would have all 
needed prestige and authority. Should a nation 
not party to the agreement wish to appear before 
the court as litigant or be ready to accept an invita- 
tion or summons so to appear, it would be easy to 
provide that in such case the nation in question 
might appoint an assessor for the hearing of that 
particular cause. Should a case come before the 
court involving two or more nations not parties to 
the agreement for its establishment, then similarly 
each of those nations might be given the right to 
name an assessor to participate in hearing the argu- 
ments in that case. It is neither necessary nor de- 
sirable to go here into further detail as to the con- 
stitution and scope of this court. These matters 
are dealt with in the fullest possible way, and from 
every point of view in the published records of the 



84 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

second Hague Conference and in subsequent pub- 
lications that deal with this specific question. 

Americans must be pardoned if they keep insist- 
ing upon the advantage of studying the history and 
practice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 
order to answer objections and to smooth away diffi- 
culties which arise in the minds of many thoughtful 
men in other countries as to the practicability of an 
International Court of Justice. It may be doubted 
whether any strictly legal question as to the rights of 
nations and their nationals will arise before such a 
court which has not already arisen in some form or 
other before the Supreme Court of the United States 
as a question involving the rights of States and their 
citizens. For example, nearly eighty years ago the 
United States Supreme Court was called upon to 
distinguish a judicial from a political question; it 
did so then and has frequently done so since without 
serious difficulty. A question addressed to the 
framework and political character of a Government 
is essentially political ; it is, therefore, not a question 
that is in its nature justiciable and that can be pre- 
sented to a court. It would, of course, be necessary 
for an International Court of Justice to build up 
gradually and by a series of decisions a body of 
precedents that would, so to speak, take the form of 
an international common law. The point of de- 
parture would be the international law of the mo- 
ment, existing treaties, and the form of agreement 
through which the court itself would come into be- 
ing. It might be expected that this court would de- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 85 

cide for itself in matters of doubt whether or not a 
given question was justiciable. The International 
Court of Justice could hardly vary from the prac- 
tice of the United States Supreme Court in not at- 
tempting to compel the presence of any Government 
made defendant or in not attempting to execute by 
force its finding against the contention of any Gov- 
ernment. If the publicity attending the operations 
of such a court, the inherent and persuasive reason- 
ableness of its findings, and a body of international 
public opinion that has turned with conviction to 
the judicial settlement of international disputes, 
cannot insure the carrying into effect of the judg- 
ments of an International Court of Justice, then the 
world is not ready for such a court. To establish 
it under such circumstances would merely be to pro- 
vide another opportunity for so magnifying and 
sharpening points of international difference as 
probably to increase the likelihood of war. There 
was a time when, under great stress of party and 
personal feeling, Andrew Jackson could say: "John 
Marshall has made his decision; now let him en- 
force it." Nevertheless, the judgments of the United 
States Supreme Court are not only obeyed but re- 
spected. This results not alone from the confidence 
in their reasonableness which the tradition of a 
century has built up, but from the fact that Amer- 
ican public opinion will not tolerate any other 
course. There is every reason to believe that a 
course of judicial action that has been demonstrated 
to be practicable, wise, and beneficent within the 



86 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

United States will also in time be demonstrated to 
be practicable, wise, and beneficent as between 
nations. The important thing is to make a be- 
ginning. This the Allies are in position to do. 



XIII 

SUGGESTED MODE OF PROCEDURE AFTER THE WAR 

WORK FOR A THIRD HAGUE CONFERENCE FOUR 

SPECIFIC PROPOSALS FOR ACTION 

THE natural mode of action on the part of 
the several Powers at the conclusion of the 
war would be to arrive, in international 
conference, at an agreement upon a restatement of 
the convention for the pacific settlement of inter- 
national disputes as formulated at the second Hague 
Conference, and upon the establishment of an In- 
ternational Court of Justice in some such fashion 
as has been already outlined. In both cases it would 
be possible to simplify and to improve the forms of 
statement as these were previously agreed upon. 
This war has itself made not only possible, but 
easy, considerable advance beyond the positions 
then taken. Public opinion understands more 
clearly than it did at that time what these arrange- 
ments involve and how desirable they are. For 
example, if the International Commissions of In- 
quiry are to be really valuable, the limitation im- 
posed upon them as to disputes of an international 
nature that involve either honor or essential in- 
terests must be removed. It is a poor sort of in- 
ternational dispute in which some one cannot find 
a point involving either honor or an essential interest. 
At the same time, it is of the first importance to 

87 



88 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

make no promises that cannot, and will not, be kept 
by the contracting nations. Therefore, only in so 
far as the constitution and jurisdiction of the In- 
ternational Court of Justice and the constitution 
and authority of the International Commissions of 
Inquiry are understood and assented to by the 
people of the several nations which enter into them 
should anything be attempted. To endeavor to 
do more than this is to hold out a hope that will 
surely be dashed later to the ground. To attempt 
a formal international order in advance of anything 
for which the world is ready might well result in 
setting back that international order for a gen- 
eration, or even for a century. The war has pre- 
pared the world for much that it would not have 
accepted three years ago. It is the task of states- 
manship to ascertain what instructed public opin- 
ion is now willing to support and to fix it in inter- 
national institutions. 

Any international conference to fix the condi- 
tions of a durable peace will, as a matter of course, 
include the United States. The United States is 
a participant in this war, although an unwilling and 
a neutral participant. Modern conditions have 
brought it to pass that a nation may remain neutral 
and yet be involved, both directly and indirectly, 
economically and in point of principle, in a war 
that breaks out on another continent. Moreover, 
this is no ordinary war. It is, as has been said over 
and over again, a clash of ideals, of philosophies 
of life, or political and social aims. This is why it 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 89 

must be fought until the principles at stake are or 
can be established, and why it cannot be com- 
promised. One who cannot range himself on one 
side or the other in this conflict must be either so 
dull of understanding as not to be able to com- 
prehend the greatest things in the world or so pro- 
foundly immoral as not to care what becomes of 
the human race, its liberty, and its progress. To 
guard against a repetition of any such conflict, 
representatives of neutral states will undoubtedly 
be summoned to the same council table with the 
representatives of the belligerent Powers. 

Admirable and far-sighted plans for securing a 
peaceful international order have been before the 
world for three hundred years. M. Emeric Cruce 
submitted his plan, which included liberty of com- 
merce throughout all the world, as early as 1623. 
Following the Peace of Utrecht, the Abbe de St. 
Pierre developed his plan, which included media- 
tion, arbitration, and an interesting addition to the 
effect that any sovereign who took up arms before 
the union of nations had declared war, or who re- 
fused to execute a regulation of the union or a judg- 
ment of the Senate, was to be declared an enemy 
of European society. The union was then to make 
war upon h'im until he should be disarmed or un- 
til the regulation or judgment should be executed. 
Some twenty years earlier William Penn had pro- 
duced his quaint and really extraordinary plan for 
the peace of Europe, in which he, too, proposed to 
proceed by military power against any sovereign 



90 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

who refused to submit his claims to a proposed 
diet, or parliament of Europe, or who refused to 
abide by and to perform any judgment of such a 
body. All these plans, like those of Rousseau, 
Bentham, and Kant, which came later, as well as 
William Ladd's elaborate and carefully considered 
essay on a Congress of Nations, published in 1840, 
were brought into the world too soon. They were 
the fine and noble dreams of seers which it is tak- 
ing civilized men three centuries and more to begin 
effectively to realize. 

Out of the international conference that will fol- 
low the war there should come, and doubtless will 
come, a union of states to secure peace. That Mr. 
Asquith has long had this idea in mind is plain. 
Speaking at Dublin, on September 25, 19 14, when 
the war was still very young and when German 
hopes were high and confident, Mr. Asquith, in dis- 
cussing the causes and meaning of the war, said: 
"It means, finally, or it ought to mean, perhaps by 
a slow and gradual process, the substitution for force, 
for the clash of competing ambitions, for groupings 
and alliances and a precarious equipoise, — the sub- 
stitution for all these things of a real European part- 
nership, based on the recognition of equal right and 
established and enforced by a common will. A 
year ago that would have sounded like a Utopian 
idea. It is probably one that may not, or will not, 
be realized either to-day or to-morrow. If and 
when this war is decided in favor of the Allies, it 
will at once come within the range, and before long 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 91 

within the grasp, of European statesmanship." 
Events are hastening the consummation of Mr. As- 
quith's hope. On November 9 last, Chancellor von 
Bethmann-Hollweg said before the main committee 
of the Reichstag : ' ' Germany is at all times ready to 
join a league of nations — yes, even to place herself 
at the head of such a league — to keep in check the 
disturbers of the peace." Previously, on May 27, 
1 91 6, speaking in Washington, President Wilson had 
used these words: "Only when the great nations of 
the world have reached some sort of agreement as 
to what they hold to be fundamental to their com- 
mon interest, and as to some feasible method of 
acting in concert when any nation or group of na- 
tions seeks to disturb those fundamental things, 
can we feel that civilization is at least in a way of 
justifying its existence and claiming to be finally 
established." Similar, if less direct, expressions 
have come from responsible statesmen and from 
leaders of opinion in other lands. It would seem as 
if the world, at the close of this war, would have 
within its grasp the possibility to achieve at once a 
union of nations to establish an International Court 
of Justice to try justiciable causes, International 
Commissions of Inquiry to facilitate a solution of 
non-justiciable disputes by means of an impartial 
and conscientious investigation of the facts and by 
making them public, and generally to secure the 
peace of the world. 

It would be best if the Allied Powers, after the 
terms of settlement of the present conflict have 



92 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

been agreed upon, were themselves to invite such a 
conference to meet at The Hague and there to con- 
tinue to build upon the foundations already laid in 
1899 and in 1907. It is natural to expect the Allies 
to take the initiative in calling this conference, for 
such a step would be in entire accord with the em- 
phatic and oft-repeated declarations of their Gov- 
ernments. The powerful participation of France 
would assist to realize, so far as is now possible, the 
prophetic declaration of Michelet: "Au XX e siecle, 
la France declarera la Paix au monde." 

Should the Allies for any reason be reluctant to 
invite such a conference, it has been made easy for 
the President of the United States to do so. The 
Sixty-fourth Congress in enacting the Naval Appro- 
priation bill for the current year included the 
following provision, which is now the law of the 
land: 

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States 
to adjust and settle its international disputes through media- 
tion or arbitration, to the end that war may be honorably 
avoided. It looks with apprehension and disfavor upon a 
general increase of armament throughout the world, but it 
realizes that no single nation can disarm, and that without 
a common agreement upon the subject every considerable 
power must maintain a relative standing in military strength. 

In view of the premises, the President is authorized and 
requested to invite, at an appropriate time, not later than 
the close of the war in Europe, all the great Governments 
of the world to send representatives to a conference which 
shall be charged with the duty of formulating a plan for a 
court of arbitration or other tribunal, to which disputed 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 93 

questions between nations shall be referred for adjudication 
and peaceful settlement, and to consider the question of 
disarmament and submit their recommendation to their 
respective Governments for approval. The President is 
hereby authorized to appoint nine citizens of the United 
States who, in his judgment, shall be qualified for the mis- 
sion by eminence in the law and by devotion to the cause of 
peace, to be representatives of the United States in such a 
conference. The President shall fix the compensation of 
said representatives and such secretaries and other employees 
as may be needed. Two hundred thousand dollars, or so 
much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated 
and set aside and placed at the disposal of the President to 
carry into effect the provisions of this paragraph. 

It may be assumed, therefore, that whether called 
by the Governments of the Allied Powers or by the 
President of the United States, such a third Hague 
Conference will be held as promptly as may be after 
the conclusion of hostilities. Such a conference 
will, in effect, be the first step in making a union of 
states to secure the peace of the world. There 
should be urged upon it by the delegates from the 
United States not only (1) the establishment of the 
International Court of Justice, and (2) the Interna- 
tional Commissions of Inquiry, already referred to 
and described, but (3) the high wisdom of making 
provision for the stated and automatic reassembling 
of the conference at, say, four-year intervals, and 
(4) the adoption, in substance, and so far as possible 
in form, of the declaration as to the fundamental 
rights and duties of nations that has already been set 
out in full in these discussions. The result of the 



94 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

action last named would be to give the International 
Court of Justice a definite and specific statement 
of fundamental principles to be applied and inter- 
preted in the various causes that will come before 
it for adjudication. 

In all this the United States is at liberty, without 
departing from its traditional policies or without 
sacrificing any of its own interests, to participate to 
the full. In making international law and in estab- 
lishing an international order for the whole world, 
the United States is keenly and directly interested. 
A point of gravest difficulty presents itself, however, 
when we come to consider the effective enforce- 
ment of international law and the effective uphold- 
ing of whatever international order is established 
and the relation of the United States thereto. On 
signing the convention for the pacific settlement of 
international disputes agreed to at the Hague 
Conference of 1899 the delegation of the United 
States made the following formal declaration: 

Nothing contained in this convention shall be so con- 
strued as to require the United States of America to depart 
from its traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering 
with, or entangling itself in the political questions or policy 
or internal administration of any foreign state; nor shall 
anything contained in the said convention be construed to 
imply a relinquishment by the United States of America of 
its traditional attitude toward purely American questions. 

This reservation was explicitly renewed by the 
American delegates to the Hague Conference of 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 95 

1907. Put in plain language, this declaration means 
that while there is one international law and while 
there may be one international order, in the declara- 
tion and establishment of which the United States 
participates, yet there are two separate and dis- 
tinct areas of jurisdiction for the enforcement of 
international law and for the administration of the 
international order. The area of one of these juris- 
dictions is Europe and those parts of Asia and 
Africa immediately dependent thereon; the area of 
the second of these jurisdictions is America. 



XIV 

ENFORCEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE AD- 
MINISTRATION OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER 

CRITICISM OF THE PROPOSED USE OF FORCE TO 

COMPEL SUBMISSION OF EVERY INTERNATIONAL 
QUESTION TO A JUDICIAL TRIBUNAL OR COUNCIL 
OF CONCILIATION BEFORE BEGINNING HOSTIL- 
ITIES DIFFICULTY OF THE UNITED STATES MAK- 
ING ANY AGREEMENT TO THIS END THE REAL 

INTERNATIONAL GUARANTEE FOR NATIONAL SE- 
CURITY 

BEARING in mind the reservation made by 
the delegates of the United States at the 
two Hague Conferences, what are likely to 
be the methods adopted for the enforcement of in- 
ternational law and for the administration of an 
international order, in the establishment of which 
the United States participates, and what is likely to 
be the relation of the United States thereto ? What 
are the possible and desirable sanctions of interna- 
tional law and for the findings of an International 
Court of Justice? 

It will be convenient to discuss the latter question 
first. 

It may be assumed, perhaps, that what Mazzini 
somewhere described as the philosophy of Cain will 
no longer find a hearing in the world. In a broad 
sense, at least, the nations of the world are their 
brothers' keepers. Those principles and policies and 

9 6 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 97 

those conditions of human happiness and human 
progress which are not limited by national boun- 
daries and are not confined by any barriers of race, 
or religion, or language are not matters of indiffer- 
ence to any people. They are the common interest 
and the joint concern of all. The analogy between 
individuals and Governments, and that between 
states as members of a federal system and nations as 
co-operating equals in an international order, is 
illuminating and helpful, but it must not be pressed 
too far. An individual is a single responsible human 
being whose deeds may be visited upon his own head. 
A nation is a large community of individuals hold- 
ing different personal opinions and having different 
personal interests, all of whom may or may not 
agree with and support a given action of their 
Government, and who cannot therefore be held per- 
sonally responsible for governmental policy without 
injustice and unnecessary injury. It is small rec- 
ompense for the misdeeds of a Government to kill 
innocent men, women, and children who are its sub- 
jects or to ravage and destroy their property. There 
are serious objections to the use of force as between 
nations, which objections have nothing to do with 
pacifist teachings or with the doctrine of non-re- 
sistance, but which arise out of the nature of the 
facts. There is at present no suggestion from any 
authoritative source that some sort of international 
sheriff should be called into existence for the pur- 
pose of enforcing the findings of an International 
Court of Justice. It is everywhere proposed to leave 



98 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

this to international public opinion. There are, 
however, well-supported proposals that, in case any 
nation which has become a member of the proposed 
international order' shall issue an ultimatum or 
threaten war before submitting any question which 
arises to an international judicial tribunal or council 
of conciliation, it shall be proceeded against forth- 
with by the other Powers; first, through the use of 
their economic force, and, second, by the joint use 
of their military forces if the nation in question 
actually proceeds to make war or invades another's 
territory. 

In so far as a plan of this kind is a recognition of 
the undoubted fact that force of some kind is the 
ultimate sanction in all human affairs, it is on safe 
ground. When, however, it proposes to make im- 
mediate practical application of this principle in the 
manner described, the case is by no means so clear. 
It is not unlikely, for example, that the adoption of 
such a policy would require that every war of what- 
ever character should become in effect a world war. 
If it be replied that the joint forces of the other 
Powers would be so overwhelming that no one Power 
would venture to defy them, then one who recalls 
the political and military history of Europe must be 
permitted to doubt. Other matters apart, it is not 
always so easy to determine to the general satis- 
faction which of several parties to an agreement is 
the first aggressor as to warrant the terrible conse- 
quences that would follow from treating as an act 
of aggression on the part of a given nation what that 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 99 

nation considered an act of self-defense, thereby 
precipitating a world war through the application of 
the principle in question. If one will take the pains 
to examine with care the official communications 
which passed between the various European Gov- 
ernments between July 23 and August 4, 1914, it 
will be apparent what pains each Government was 
taking to put some other Government in the wrong. 
With time to make leisurely examination of the 
records, the public opinion of the world has made up 
its mind on these points so far as the present war is 
concerned. But would it have been practicable, or 
indeed possible, for a concert of nations to have 
moved with their joint military forces against 
Austria-Hungary, or Russia, or Germany in the first 
days of August, 19 14, and have been quite sure of 
their ground ? If it be said that in the presence of 
such an agreement among the nations as is sug- 
gested no such acts of aggression as were committed 
in the last days of July and the first days of August, 
1 9 14, would have taken place, the obvious reply is 
that this is a very large and a very dangerous as- 
sumption. 

An even more interesting illustration may be 
given. On April 20, 1914, the President of the 
United States in a formal address to the Congress 
narrated certain circumstances which occurred at 
Tampico, Mexico, on April 9 and the days next 
following. Having set forth the facts concerning 
these incidents, the President continued: "I, there- 
fore, come to ask your approval that I should use 



ioo THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

the armed forces of the United States in such ways 
and to such an extent as may be necessary to obtain 
from General Huerta and his adherents the fullest 
recognition . of the rights and dignity of the United 
States." Two days later the Congress adopted a 
joint resolution declaring that the President was 
justified in the employment of armed forces of the 
United States to enforce his demand for unequivocal 
amends for certain affronts and indignities com- 
mitted against the United States, and at the same 
time disclaimed on behalf of the United States any 
hostility to the Mexican people or any purpose to 
make war upon Mexico. It so happened that be- 
tween the day of the President's address to the Con- 
gress and that of the passage of the joint resolution, 
namely, on April 21, the admiral commanding the 
American Navy off Vera Cruz, acting under orders, 
landed a force of marines at that place and seized 
the custom-house. In these operations nineteen 
American marines were reported killed and seventy 
wounded, while the Mexican loss was reported to be 
one hundred and twenty-six killed and one hun- 
dred and ninety -five wounded. That legally this 
was an act of war can hardly be doubted. 

At the time of these incidents there was in exis- 
tence a treaty between the United States and Mexico 
which explicitly provided that any disagreement 
arising between the Governments of the two repub- 
lics should, if possible, be settled in such manner as 
to preserve the state of peace and friendship that 
existed when the treaty was made, and that if the 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 101 

two Governments themselves should not be able to 
come to an agreement a resort should not on that 
account be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostil- 
ity of any kind until that Government which deemed 
itself aggrieved should have maturely considered, 
in the spirit of peace and good neighborship, whether 
it would not be better that such difference should 
be settled by the arbitration of commissioners ap- 
pointed on each side or by that of a friendly nation. 
This provision, contained in the Treaty of Guada- 
lupe Hidalgo, proclaimed July 4, 1848, was explicitly 
reaffirmed in the Gadsden Treaty, proclaimed June 
30, 1854. 

These being the facts, would it be the contention 
of those who urge the use of force to compel a power 
to submit its international disputes to a judicial 
tribunal or to a council of conciliation before making 
or threatening war, that had such an agreement 
been in existence in April, 19 14, the armies and navies 
of Great Britain, of France, of Germany, of Russia, 
of Italy, and of Japan should have jointly moved 
against the United States ? Would such action, if 
taken, have been likely to promote international 
peace or to compel prolonged and destructive in- 
ternational war ? 

Again, if it be said that with such an agreement in 
force the Government of the United States would not 
have taken the action in question, the answer must 
be that such an inference is, to say the least, exceed- 
ingly doubtful. 

Those who deal with the facts of international re- 



102 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

lationships and who refuse to be misled by formulas 
and mere generalizations must find many reasons to 
withhold their assent from any plan which under the 
circumstances just stated would have compelled the 
various Powers of Europe, with all of whom the 
United States was on friendly relations, to make 
joint war upon the American people. It is difficult 
to contemplate such an event or its possibility hav- 
ing any place in a plan whose aim is to secure a 
durable peace. 

As a matter of fact, the only practical sanction of 
international law is the public opinion of the civilized 
world. Even now nations are not anxious to incur 
the condemnation of other peoples. Such condem- 
nation leads to unfriendliness, and unfriendliness 
leads to economic and intellectual isolation. These 
are universally disliked and dreaded. The strongest 
Governments are the quickest to respond, as a rule, 
to the judgment of international public opinion. 
It is in highest degree deplorable that the German 
Government felt itself strong enough to defy the 
public opinion of the world in its relation to the 
origin of the present war and in its conduct of it; 
but in so doing it departed from the precepts and the 
practice of Bismarck. He was always anxious that 
before beginning a war steps should be taken to 
predispose the opinion of other nations in favor of 
his policies and acts. That decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind upon which was rested the first 
national public act in the Western World is still a 
powerful moving force among men and nations. It 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 103 

may well be doubted whether this very sanction is 
not more effective in securing obedience even to 
municipal law than are the punishments which the 
various statutes provide. Many a man who would 
not fear the legal penalty of a wrong act is with- 
held from it by fear of the terrible punishment 
which is involved in the loss of the respect and con- 
fidence of his fellow men. 

So far as the people of the United States are con- 
cerned, there would appear to be an almost insuper- 
able obstacle to their joining in an agreement to 
make war upon a recalcitrant nation which might 
insist upon beginning hostilities before submitting 
a dispute to arbitration. There is no higher or more 
solemn act of sovereignty than the declaration of 
war. The Constitution of the United States lodges 
this power in the Congress. Should the United 
States enter into an international agreement to con- 
tribute its military and naval forces to a joint war 
against some other nation not named, at a time not 
stated, and under circumstances only generally de- 
scribed, then — waiving all questions of constitu- 
tionality — it would have put the power to exercise 
this solemn sovereign act in commission. After an 
interval of years, or perhaps of decades, the people 
of the United States might awake some morning to 
find themselves at war with Russia, or with Greece, 
or with Spain, or with Argentina, because of some 
happening of which they themselves knew little or 
nothing and on account of which they might well 
regard going to war as incredible. The chances 



104 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

that under such circumstances an agreement of this 
kind would be kept are not very great. It ought 
not, therefore, to be entered into. 

In this connection- it is worth while recalling the 
fact that when, on March 18, 1913, President Wilson 
announced the unwillingness of the United States 
to participate in the so-called six-power loan to 
China, he gave as a reason the fact that the respon- 
sibility which participation in the loan would in- 
volve might go to the length, in some unhappy con- 
tingency, of bringing about forcible intervention on 
the part of the United States in the financial and 
even in the political affairs of China. 

The international guarantee for national security 
for which the nations, those of Europe in particular, 
are seeking would be had through the establishment 
of the institutions and by the declaration of prin- 
ciples that have been already set forth and described. 
The support and the sanction of these institutions 
and their guarantees would be the public opinion of 
the world. By this is meant not the opinion of 
Governments only, but the instructed and enlight- 
ened opinion of the peoples who owe allegiance to 
these Governments. The several nations would 
not disarm, but they might well begin to limit their 
armaments in accordance with the terms of a mutual 
agreement. The faces of mankind would be set to- 
ward a happier and more peaceful future, but neither 
Utopia nor the millennium would be reached at 
once. 



XV 



THE PART OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE ENFORCE- 
MENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND IN THE 
ADMINISTRATION OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL 

ORDER THE MONROE DOCTRINE A EUROPEAN 

AND AN AMERICAN SPHERE OF ADMINISTRATIVE 

ACTION PREPARATION OF THE UNITED STATES 

FOR INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION NATIONAL 

POLICY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

THE relation of the United States to the 
methods that will be adopted for the en- 
forcement of international law and for the 
administration of an international order is a matter 
of highest concern not only to the people of the 
United States themselves but to the people of Eu- 
rope as well. If, an international order having been 
established with the co-operation of the United 
States, the responsibility for the administration of 
that international order in Europe and in those 
parts of Asia and Africa that are politically de- 
pendent thereon, is a matter in which the United 
States will not directly concern itself, then it is im- 
portant that this fact and its implications be clearly 
understood. 

It is at this point that we come face to face with 
the traditional policy of the United States, built, it 
has always been believed, upon obedience to the in- 
junction of Washington's Farewell Address and upon 

105 



106 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

the declarations and policies that taken together 
constitute what is known as the Monroe Doctrine. 
It was this which the American delegates to the 
two Hague Conferences had in mind when they 
made the formal declaration of reservation that has 
already been quoted. 

As a matter of pure theory it might readily be 
argued that, in looking to the future of the world's 
peace and comity, there is no reason why the United 
States should not unite on equal terms with the na- 
tions of Europe to assume international duties and 
responsibilities in all parts of the world. On the 
contrary, viewed theoretically, many reasons might 
be brought forward why such a new departure in 
policy on the part of the United States would be 
sound and judicious. Whatever may prove to be 
possible a century hence, it seems quite plain that as 
a practical matter the people of the United States 
could not now be induced to take any such novel 
and revolutionary steps. Their form of government 
is not well adjusted to possible action of this kind 
and their habits of thought would make any con- 
sistent and persistent co-operation of this sort prob- 
ably out of the question, at least for the present and 
for some time to come. 

It is, of course, true that the precise facts which 
Washington had in mind when he wrote his Fare- 
well Address and those which Monroe had in mind 
when he sent his message of December 2, 1823, 
to the Congress, have long since changed. There 
is no longer any such thing as a European sys- 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 107 

tern of government which might be extended to 
this or any other continent. The spread of dem- 
ocratic ideas and principles has brought by far 
the larger number of European nations under their 
sway, and the love of liberty is just as strong in the 
breasts of those peoples as it is in the breasts of the 
people of the United States. Time is on the side of 
democracy. Those nations which still maintain 
barriers against it in their governmental forms are 
bound to give way with more or less good grace and 
in a shorter or a longer time. The gap which sepa- 
rates Europe and America is no longer one made 
by the difference between their political philosophies, 
for these have been steadily growing into closer 
accord. It is no longer one made by wide and tem- 
pestuous oceans crossed with danger and difficulty, 
for steam and electricity have united to make this 
distance almost negligible. The real gap is the one 
signified by the distinction between the names Old 
World and New World. This difference, which of 
course has its roots in history, may be in large part 
sentimental, but it is on that account none the less 
real and compelling. It was just this distinction 
which underlay the counsels of Washington. It 
would be foolish to treat those counsels as an in- 
junction never to be modified or departed from, no 
matter what might be the changed conditions in 
the world, and it would be incorrect to read into 
them a severe and narrow meaning which they do 
not necessarily have; and yet it remains true that 
progress is more likely to be made by the American 



108 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

people through following those counsels and through 
modifying them in various ways as circumstances 
invite or compel than through departing from them 
entirely in an effort to strike out in new and hitherto 
untried paths. 

The Monroe Doctrine is a national policy that has 
come to be widely recognized and in large part ac- 
cepted by European nations. It is not a part of 
international law, but it might easily become so in 
the working out of an international order, responsi- 
bility for the administration of which will be divided 
into two spheres, one European, the other American. 
Before sending the message in which the Monroe 
Doctrine was announced, Monroe consulted Jeffer- 
son and received from him a well-known letter in 
which this striking passage occurs: "The question 
presented by letters you have sent me is the most 
momentous which has ever been offered to my con- 
templation since that of independence. That made 
us a nation; this sets our compass and points the 
course which we are to steer through the ocean of 
time opening on us. . . . Our first and fundamental 
maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves in the 
broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe 
to intermeddle with Cis- Atlantic affairs. ,, Shortly 
afterward Daniel Webster, who represented the op- 
posite pole of political thought, speaking in his 
place in the House of Representatives, used these 
words of the Monroe Doctrine : ' ' I will neither help 
to erase it or tear it out ; nor shall it be, by any act 
of mine, blurred or blotted. It did honor to the 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 109 

sagacity of the Government, and will not diminish 
that honor." Two generations later, in his message 
of December 17, 1895, to the Congress, President 
Cleveland described the Monroe Doctrine as in- 
tended to apply to every stage of our national life 
and to last while our republic endures. 

While State papers give to the Monroe Doctrine 
more or less precise statement and significance, in 
the minds of the people as a whole it betokens rather 
a point of view and a general guiding principle of 
international policy. Even if it were desirable to 
attempt to change this national point of view and 
to alter' this guiding principle of policy, it would be 
quite impracticable to do so. The Monroe Doc- 
trine must be accepted as an elementary fact in 
attempting to arrive at any practical conclusion as 
to the participation of the United States in the ad- 
ministration of a new international order. So far 
as European territory and jurisdiction are concerned, 
the new international order will have to be admin- 
istered by the European nations themselves. So 
far as American territory and jurisdiction are con- 
cerned, the new international order will have to be 
administered by the people of the United States in 
friendly concert with those of the other American 
republics. 

The formal erection of these two separate juris- 
dictions need not in the least weaken the position or 
the influence of the United States in the counsels and 
semi-legislative acts which will lay the basis for a 
durable peace, and out of which the new interna- 



no THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

tional order will grow. Neither should it be held to 
deprive the people of the United States of the op- 
portunity and the right to give expression to their 
feelings and convictions when questions of law and 
justice, of right and wrong, are raised as between 
nations in any part of the world. It simply means 
that for the reasons stated and on the grounds given 
the direct responsibility of the Government of the 
United States for the enforcement of the new inter- 
national order will be limited to the American conti- 
nents and to territory belonging to some one of the 
American republics. 

For participation in this task of international 
counsel and of better international administration 
the people of the United States must prepare them- 
selves. They must come to understand, while the 
largest measure of local self-government is vital to 
the continued existence and effective working of our 
domestic institutions, that when the nation acts in 
foreign policy it must act as a unit and its action 
must be everywhere upheld. A wrong step in do- 
mestic legislation can be corrected with no damage to 
any one but ourselves. A wrong step in foreign 
policy, however, "" can never be corrected, for it af- 
fects not only ourselves but the opinion which others 
have of us. The present German Emperor is re- 
ported to have said on one occasion that he did not 
see how his Government could ever make another 
treaty with the United States, because, under our 
constitutional law, treaty provisions, so far as they 
were municipal law in the United States, might be 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE in 

and frequently were modified or repealed by a sub- 
sequent act of Congress without any formal notice 
to the other high contracting party. It is, of course, 
well known that the treaty-making power of the 
United States bristles with difficult and delicate 
questions, and it must be conceded that if the United 
States is to become an effective international in- 
fluence in support of the ideas and principles upon 
which its own Government and polity are based, and 
if it is to lend useful aid in securing and maintain- 
ing a durable peace, it must first set its own house 
in order. It must have a care to make no interna- 
tional agreements and to assume no international 
responsibilities which it will not keep and bear to the 
full, at whatever cost to itself. Having made such 
engagements they must be scrupulously observed. 
To bring this to pass means that the treaty-making 
power must not march far in advance of supporting 
public opinion and that the whole power of the Gov- 
ernment must be available to enforce the terms of a 
treaty once entered into. 

These questions of constitutional law and of polit- 
ical policy are bound up with questions affecting the 
military and naval systems of the United States. 
Competition in armaments is the worst possible 
form of international rivalry; but to take a seat at 
an international council table in the present state of 
world public opinion and world policy without some 
effective means of representing a nation's purpose 
is to reduce such participation to mere futile debate. 
The other liberty-loving nations would be quite 



H2 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

justified in asking two questions of the representa- 
tives of the United States : first, what are the policies 
which you believe to be just and practicable as part 
of a new international order; and,. second, what con- 
tribution can you and will you make to the support 
of that international order if you join with us in 
bringing it into being ? It is, perhaps, by coming 
face to face with these searching questions that the 
people of the United States will most quickly be 
brought to realize what new domestic policies they 
must enter upon in order to prepare themselves for 
international participation. The spirit of interna- 
tional and of national devotion which time and time 
again has triumphed over provincialism, local in- 
terest, and selfishness must be appealed to once more. 
National service can no longer remain an empty 
phrase, but must be given life and meaning and 
universal application. As the spirit and principles 
of democracy require that there be the widest possi- 
ble participation in the formulation of public policy, 
so this spirit and these principles require that there 
shall be the widest possible participation in the 
nation's service, and, if need be, in its defense. An 
army of hired soldiers as the chief dependence of a 
democratic people is as much of an anachronism as 
an army of hired voters would be. The country's 
system of public education must be taken in strong 
hand, purged of much of its sentimentality and weak 
and futile philosophizing, and made more and more 
a genuine preparation of American youth for intel- 
ligent and helpful participation in American life. 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 113 

Outside of and beyond the public educational sys- 
tem of the nation there should be established with- 
out delay a system of universal training for national 
service and, should it ever be needed, for national 
defense. Such a policy is the antithesis of mili- 
tarism; it is democracy conscious and mindful of 
its duties and responsibilities as well as of its rights. 
The people of the United States will never become 
an important agency in the development of fyelpful 
world policies unless they first take those steps that 
both entitle and enable them genuinely to partici- 
pate in such a task. Every belligerent nation is re- 
ceiving at the hands of this war the severest possible 
course of instruction and discipline. Every impor- 
tant belligerent nation will emerge from this war a 
generation or perhaps a century in advance of the 
United States in all that pertains to national service, 
to national sacrifice, and to that strengthening of 
character which comes not from talking about ideals 
but from actively supporting them in the most 
fiery of contests. It is for the people of the United 
States to find ways and means of learning the lessons 
of the war without having to pay the awful cost in 
life and treasure which military participation in it 
involves. Their future place in the world's history, 
the regard which other nations will have for them, 
and their own more fortunate and just development 
all depend upon the way in which these searching 
problems are solved. It deprives a nation's voice of 
half its force if it protests against cruelty and op- 
pression and injustice abroad while there are cruelty 



114 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

and oppression and injustice at home. The war has 
forced all these considerations upon Great Britain 
and France and Germany and Russia and the 1 rest, 
and they are dealing with them each in its own way. 
The war has also forced these considerations upon the 
people of the United States. How are they going to 
deal with them ? Will they merely wish to have a 
durable peace, or will they so act at home and abroad 
as to help to insure a durable peace ? 



XVI 

CONCLUSION — QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE — THE 
ESSENTIALS OF A DURABLE PEACE 

THE ground proposed to be covered in these 
discussions has now been traversed. Start- 
ing with the assumptions that the principles 
and policies for which the Allies are contending 
must prevail if the war is to be followed by a dur- 
able peace, and that the progress of military opera- 
tions thus far has made it plain that Germany and 
the Powers associated with her cannot possibly win 
the war but must in all probability shortly give 
way before the military and economic superiority of 
the Allies, an effort was first made to find a possible 
point of departure for the consideration of the basis 
of a durable peace. This appeared to be provided 
by certain recent statements of Viscount Grey and 
Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg as to the objects 
for which the Allies and the Germanic Powers, re- 
spectively, are contending. A comparison of these 
statements led to a discussion of what is meant by 
the rights of nations, great and small, and of what 
is involved in providing them with a satisfactory 
guarantee for their security, including the open 
door policy in international trade. An examination 
of the meaning of the phrase "freedom of the seas" 
followed, and then a discussion of the part played 

"5 



n6 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

by France and by Russia in the war, and of the spe- 
cific acts and policies which would probably be asked 
for by them as conditions of a durable peace. It 
next became necessary to analyze what is meant by 
Prussian militarism, which it is a chief aim of the 
Allies to destroy. So much being premised, there 
followed an examination of the progress heretofore 
made in the establishment of an international order, 
and this was followed by specific suggestions for the 
development and strengthening of that international 
order in ways and for the purposes that have been 
set forth in detail. It was natural to examine next, 
with some particularity, the possible and the prob- 
able attitude of the people of the United States to- 
ward such an international order, toward its ad- 
ministration, and toward the future enforcement of 
international law. As a corollary to the examination 
of these points, some suggestions were offered as to 
the lessons of this war for the people of the United 
States in matters of their own domestic policy. 

In this survey many matters, some of them highly 
important, have been left on one side. There is, 
for example, the question as to the best disposition, 
in the interest of a durable peace, of the colonial 
possessions that were held by Germany at the out- 
break of the war. This naturally raises questions as 
to the future policy of the civilized nations toward 
the whole subject of colonization and the assumption 
of sovereignty over new territory. Then there is 
the Far East, with its special problems. At the mo- 
ment this is an area in which both the European 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 117 

nations and the United States participate, after a 
fashion, in the carrying out of various important 
policies of an international character. Whether it 
would be best to look forward to a continuance, for 
some time at least, of this general relationship, or 
whether it would be better to institute in the Far 
East a third administrative area for the carrying on 
of an international order and the enforcement of 
international law, with chief responsibility in the 
hands of Japan, that nation operating under a sort of 
Asiatic Monroe Doctrine, is well worth considering. 

Important questions suggest themselves as to the 
domestic policy of various peoples toward races and 
religions represented in the populations dependent 
upon them, which frequently give rise to interna- 
tional unrest and' international friction. Instances 
of this sort are the Armenians in Turkey, the Finns 
in Russia, the Serbians in Austria, and the Jews in 
both Russia and Rumania. Not all of these vexed 
questions will be answered within the lifetime of 
any one now living; but if certain principles of na- 
tional and international conduct are kept clearly in 
view, and if an international order is erected on 
those principles as a foundation and a true Inter- 
national Court of Justice established, then a possible 
way will have been provided for the calm considera- 
tion and judicial examination of even such perplex- 
ing questions as these. 

Finally, there is the whole question of disarma- 
ment, or rather the limitation of armaments, the 
presentation of which by the Tsar was the formal 



n8 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

reason for the calling of the first Hague Conference. 
This same question, it must be remembered, was 
considered by the British representatives at the 
second Hague Conference to have a bearing on the 
so-called freedom of the seas, and particularly on 
the exemption of private property, not contraband, 
from capture. Even if what appears to be a durable 
peace is the outcome of the present war, it is plain 
that the world will have left enough hard problems 
of an international character to occupy it, even 
without war, for generations to come. 

The deep underlying causes of the present war 
must be understood and taken into full considera- 
tion in any discussion of a durable peace that is to 
have practical value. By this is not meant the nar- 
row question of the precise sequence of events from 
July 23 to August 1, 1 9 14, or the weight to be at- 
tached to any given act or word of any particular 
Government at that hectic time. All these matters, 
as was said at the outset of these discussions, are for 
the time at least of merely historical interest. Some 
day the dispassionate writer of history will set out an 
account of them which will govern the belief of the 
generations that are to come; but this is after all a 
minor matter. The real underlying cause of the 
war was an irrepressible conflict between two views 
and ideals of national development and of civiliza- 
tion. As has already been explained, the militaristic 
policy of Prussia, extended for the time being over 
all Germany and Germany's allies, represents and 
gives voice to an old and dying order. Perhaps 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 119 

that militaristic policy was at one time necessary 
to the development not only of Prussia and of 
Germany but of the world at large; but if so, it 
has long since served its proper purpose and must 
now give way to the wiser, more humane, and more 
advanced philosophy of national and international 
life, for which the Allies, despite all their superficial 
differences, are contending with an amazing single- 
ness of purpose. 

To conquer the militaristic ideal, as represented 
for the moment by Prussian policy, will not be 
enough to insure a durable peace. The spirit and 
the point of view which manifest themselves in mili- 
tarism, in the subordination of civil to military au- 
thority and policy, and in the setting of right below 
might, must be driven out of the hearts and minds of 
men. It will not be enough to drive them out of the 
hearts and minds of Prussians and Germans; they 
must be driven out of the hearts and minds of those 
Englishmen, those Frenchmen, those Russians, 
those Americans, and those Japanese in which they 
may have found lodgment. This can take place only 
if the minds and purposes of men are controlled by 
something that is more powerful than militarism be- 
cause it is more moral and more helpful to mankind. 
In other words, the basis of sound international pol- 
icy will be found in sound domestic policy, and in 
sympathy with equally sound domestic policies in 
other lands. As nations come more and more to see 
that their greatness consists in doing justice and se- 
curing happiness at home rather than in extending 



120 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

their physical power over their neighbors and in 
forcing their trade by undue and unfair grants of 
privilege, the peaceful area of the world will rapidly 
widen. 

The institutions which the new international or- 
der that has here been proposed and outlined will 
erect, should be and doubtless will be of the great- 
est value in educating the mind of the world toward 
healthier and wiser international relationships, but 
those institutions cannot do the work alone. They 
must have behind them the driving force of a pur- 
pose to keep the peace, of a desire to execute in spirit 
as well as in letter international engagements, and 
also a curbing of those cruder and more brutal 
forms of patriotism which manifest themselves by 
doing injustice and wrong to others. If it be said 
that such a development would mean the breaking 
down of nations and of nationalism as a force in the 
world, the answer is that it will do nothing of the 
sort. The individual human being whose acts are 
controlled by an overmastering sense of duty is not 
less of a person, but more, than the individual hu- 
man being whose acts are controlled by sheer sel- 
fishness. What is true of men in this regard is true 
also of nations. A nation, like an individual, will 
become greater as it cherishes a high ideal and does 
service and helpful acts to its neighbors whether 
great or small, and as it co-operates with them in 
working toward a common end. If this be pro- 
nounced Utopian, then Utopia is the goal for which 
every moral person in the world is laboring. 



THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 121 

Though to be defeated in this war, the German 
people will, on that very account, have a still more 
important part to play in civilization than has yet 
fallen to their lot. They have, it is complained, 
come late into the world, and found the choice places 
already possessed by others. But the choice places 
in political development, in administrative compe- 
tence, in uplifting and making comfortable the great 
mass of the population, in developing literature and 
science and art, and in finding new ways to express 
the joy and satisfaction of living, are always open to 
the possession of any one qualified to enter into them. 
The sense of duty has taken a strong hold of the Ger- 
man people ever since Fichte's time. It has mightily 
increased the excellence of their excellences and it 
has greatly magnified the seriousness of their defects. 
Should this war prove to be a burning up of the most 
powerful remnants of militarism that yet remain 
in the world, it will have done the German people 
the greatest possible service. One hundred and 
twenty millions of eager, active, purposeful men, 
living in the temperate zone and having a long tra- 
dition of heroic endeavor, cannot be reduced to 
nothingness by any power but their own. Stripped 
of the militaristic purpose and brought into har- 
mony with the other great peoples of the world, the 
Germans would, it may safely be predicted, enter 
upon a new period of usefulness and achievement 
that would make the history of the last hundred 
years seem paltry by comparison. What Frederick 
William III so finely said when the humiliation of 



122 THE BASIS OF DURABLE PEACE 

Jena was still fresh may well be repeated one hun- 
dred and ten years afterward. 

In conclusion, then,- a durable peace depends upon 
the victory of the Allies in the present war and 
upon the establishment in public policy of the prin- 
ciples for which they are contending. It depends 
upon a withholding of all acts of vengeance and re- 
prisal, and the just and statesmanlike application to 
each specific problem that arises for settlement of 
the principles for which the war is being fought. 
It depends upon the establishment of an interna- 
tional order and of those international institutions 
that have been here sketched in outline. It depends 
upon a spirit of devotion to that order and to those 
institutions, as well as upon a fixed purpose to up- 
hold and to defend them. It depends upon domestic 
policies of justice and helpfulness, and the curbing 
of arrogance, greed, and privilege, so far as it is 
within the power of government to do so. It de- 
pends upon the exaltation of the idea of justice, not 
only as between men within a nation, but as between 
nations themselves ; for durable peace is a by-prod- 
uct of justice. When these things are accomplished 
there will be every prospect of a durable peace be- 
cause the essential prerequisite will have been pro- 
vided — the Will to Peace. 



APPENDIX 

I. HALL CAINE TO COSMOS 

II. COSMOS TO HALL CAINE 

III. HALL CAINE TO COSMOS 

IV. COSMOS TO HIS CRITICS 
V. THE ARTICLES OF COSMOS 



HALL CAINE TO COSMOS 

London, November 25, 1916. 
To Cosmos: - 

The New York Times has done me, with others, the honor 
of asking me to reply to your plea for immediate peace. I 
recognize in your opinions and in your method of present- 
ing them a marked resemblance to the opinions and meth- 
ods of certain distinguished and honored Englishmen, but, 
assuming that you are an American, I begin by saying that 
your whole argument, so far as it has been made known to 
us on this side of the ocean, labors under the disadvantage 
of your aloofness from the emotions excited by the war. 
We have it on ancient authority that the lookers-on see 
most of the game; but it will not be denied that the players 
feel most of it, and we think it is necessary to feel as well 
as to see this war in order to know which is the moment 
most favorable for a discussion of peace. 

I think you have failed to see that the first condition of 
such a discussion is not the military position of the belliger- 
ents but their spiritual temper. You say that the similarity 
of the recent utterances of Viscount Grey and Herr von 
Bethmann Hollweg gives hope of a formula that would sat- 
isfy both, but we think the peace speech of the German 
Chancellor was inspired by the idea of peace with German 
victory behind it, and we are not surprised that the German 
people should think that the so-called peace speech of the 
British Foreign Secretary was inspired by a corresponding 
idea of peace with a victory for the Allies behind it. Not 
until one or the other of these ministers approaches the 
subject without the thought of victory, or with the idea of 
submission, or the theory of a drawn war can conditions 

125 



126 APPENDIX 

come to that point which is favorable to a discussion of 
peace. We see no sign whatever of that condition either in 
England or Germany at the present moment. 

Cause of War Still an Issue 

We gather that you think it is useless to concern ourselves 
now with any question of the causes of the war. We, on 
the contrary, think that this is not only necessary, but in- 
evitable, to any hopeful consideration of peace. We think 
the war had its origin in a plot; that this plot found its cli- 
max in the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia; that Serbia could 
only have accepted that ultimatum by ceasing to be a na- 
tion; that the German Ambassador at Vienna certainly, 
and the Kaiser probably, knew and approved of the terms 
of the ultimatum before it was despatched; that the delib- 
erate object of the ultimatum was to break the peace of 
Europe in the interests of Germany's designs; that Germany 
regarded the war, not merely as a necessary evil, but as a 
laudable means of obtaining dominion, and that the subju- 
gation of Serbia and the violation of Belgium were the logical 
outcome of this false and wicked policy. We see no evi- 
dence that Germany has repented of that plot, and no 
prospect of a lasting and authentic peace until she does 
repent of it or suffer for not doing so. 

We also gather that you think that, inasmuch as it is 
impossible at this moment to discuss the motives of the 
belligerents, it ought to be sufficient for us to recognize that, 
equally with ourselves, Germany believes she is in the right. 
But that Germany believes she is in the right makes her, 
in our view, all the more wrong, and a discussion of terms 
of peace all the more impossible. Only when she realizes 
that she is in the wrong can we approach a discussion of a 
peace that will be permanent, because based not merely 
on military necessities but on a practical recognition of the 
precepts of moral law. Of such a realization we see no sign 
in Germany at present. 

You think that the time has come for a consideration of 



APPENDIX 127 

peace because Germany must now know that she cannot 
win the war, and because the Allies must see that they can 
only win at a cost that would be scarcely less disastrous 
than defeat; but we think this is a condition that is less than 
half-way toward peace. Only when Germany sees she must 
certainly lose the war, or when the Allies feel that the worst 
disasters which may result from going on with it will not 
be atoned for by the triumph of the principles they are 
fighting for can the favorable moment come for a peace 
that will be founded merely on calculations of loss or gain. 
We see no evidence whatever that the belligerents are yet 
willing to accept these conclusions. 

Wicked Waste in Ending War Now 

We gather that you think that because the war has gone 
on so long without producing any results except immeasur- 
able misery it should stop, having failed in whatever object 
the belligerents expected from it; but it is just because the 
war has thus far produced no definite military results that 
we think it cannot stop. We think that to end the war 
now, after so much suffering and sacrifice, by any form of 
inconclusive peace, which would prove and establish noth- 
ing, would be waste — wanton, wicked, irretrievable, inex- 
cusable, blind, and blinding waste such as we dare not for 
one moment contemplate. We think such a peace would 
be treason to the dead, disloyalty to the living, an assault 
on the authority of government, an open appeal to the law- 
lessness of anarchy, a deliberate outrage on the principles 
of patriotism, and even on the sacred precepts of religion. 

You think the time favorable for a discussion of peace, 
because the Allies, though they may well win, cannot want, 
and would not, probably, be able utterly to crush their ene- 
mies. But though such of us as know history and take a 
human view of war and its probable results have never hoped 
for or dreamed of the extermination of Germany as an empire, 
we have, indeed, hoped for and dreamed of the destruction 



128 APPENDIX 

of the German political ideal which is based, as we see it, 
on the idea that civilization, culture, and the general wel- 
fare of the human family are secured by the dominion and 
tyranny of the sword, with its inevitable consequences of 
the violation of the liberties of little nations and the gen- 
eral Germanizing of the world. After two and a half years 
of war we see no sign yet that Germany has parted com- 
pany with this ideal and therefore no indication of a peace 
that could be built on Christian principles of the equal 
rights of all peoples. 

You think that to prolong the war at a cost of more and 
worse suffering would lead to such exacerbation of the feel- 
ings of the belligerents as would be deleterious to the future 
peace of Europe. We think, on the contrary, that to end 
it at this inconclusive stage, when neither side can be said 
to have reached a military conclusion, would be the surest 
way to create other wars, by giving time for recuperation 
and a renewal of hostilities which neither of the belligerents 
has repented of or seen the futility of pursuing. 

You think that though Germany may have been the 
sinister aggressor she has learned her lesson and that if 
peace comes now she may be relied upon to do her best to 
prevent more wars. We think, on the other hand, that the 
only lesson Germany has yet learned is a military lesson, 
the lesson that has come of setting too low a value on the 
power, courage, and resources of her enemies, and that the 
only safeguard of enduring peace is that she should also 
learn the moral lesson that comes of seeing the uselessness 
of war as a means toward human welfare. Of that lesson 
Germany, so far as we can see, has yet learned nothing. 

Why the War Must Go on 

You think, so far as I can judge, that if peace came now 
both belligerents would recognize the folly of war as a means 
of settling international disputes, and so having jointly 
learned their lesson would strive together to avoid its re- 
currence. 



APPENDIX 129 

We think, on the contrary, that such recognition could 
only come to both at once after complete exhaustion, and 
then the only value of the lesson would be to the rest of the 
world — America, for example, which surely cannot need it. 
It is probably true that a full sense of the futility and foolish- 
ness of war will come to the world only out of the spectacle 
of the great part of it ruined, vanquished, and laid waste; 
but even this does not shake our feeling that worse than the 
utmost ruin that can be wrought by war, terrible and awful 
as that may be, is the spiritual enslavement that may be 
prevented by it. God forbid that the very least of us against 
any hopeful plea for peace should say one word that would 
prolong the horrors of war, but we of the allied nations hate 
war with so deep a hatred that the hope of ending it once 
for all inspires us to carry it on. It is just because our hearts 
are bleeding from the frightful sacrifices we are now making 
day by day in the best of our blood and brain that we feel, 
terribly and cruelly hard as it is to say it, that they must 
continue to bleed. Nor do we think that these impulses 
conflict either with the best interests of civilization or with 
our faith. 

We are acutely and most painfully conscious that in 
struggling for what we believe with all our souls to be right 
we have been compelled to submit the issue of our cause to 
a power which has in itself nothing to do with right. We 
know that our religion teaches us that Christ pronounced 
anathema on war, and that as soon as Christianity shall 
have established its ascendency war will cease; but we also 
know and have lately been made most bitterly to feel that 
war is sometimes necessary to keep the worst elements of 
human nature in check, that an appeal to might may be 
the last resources of right, and therefore it is right to fight 
and to continue to fight for a righteous cause. On this 
foundation we of the allied nations, with extreme reluctance, 
in August, 1914, built our belief in the necessity of entering 
into the present conflict. 

And what would be the result now if after two and a 



130 APPENDIX 

half years of a war which has convulsed Europe, sweeping 
armies of men into innumerable graves and bringing misery 
to millions of women and children, we were to make peace 
with an unrepentant enemy on the grounds of expediency 
alone? We think there would be only one result, the com- 
plete breakdown in Europe of all moral law in the govern- 
ment of nations and all faith in the divine rule of the world. 

Confidence in the United States 

We are profoundly grateful to the United States for the 
watchful eye it has always kept and is still keeping on the 
prospects of peace, and we sleep with more security from a 
certainty that the one world empire which remains outside 
this maelstrom of devastating forces will step in with pro- 
posals to end the war the instant it becomes right and pos- 
sible to do so. 

Meantime we rest content with the part America is now 
taking and will, we trust, continue to take. That part is 
the part of the friend and champion, not of either bellig- 
erent, but of humanity. In our view it has been a long 
step forward from the rigid and frozen neutrality which 
America imposed on her people at the beginning of war to 
the recent warm-blooded declaration of her President that 
henceforward neutrality is impossible to a great nation in 
any conflict which affects the welfare of a vast part of the 
human family. 

That is not a new doctrine, but it is a great doctrine. It 
was the doctrine whereon the mighty Englishman, Oliver 
Cromwell, made England not only the most powerful but 
the most honored among the nations of the world, and in 
the midst of the revivals of methods of warfare which seem 
to us to be destitute of all distinction between right and 
wrong, and to deserve no other names than murder and 
slavery, we shall be satisfied if America should continue to 
stand steadfastly for the high principle, on whichever side 
assailed, that the laws of humanity, which are immutable, 



APPENDIX 131 

shall not be outraged. That of itself will help to keep the 
spirit of justice alive in the world and go far toward bring- 
ing nearer the day of peace. 

Hall Caine. 

II 

COSMOS TO HALL CAINE 

November 27, 1916. 
To Hall Caine: 

By the courtesy of The New York Times I am able to make 
immediate reply to your cabled letter dated November 25. 
You have quite misunderstood the purpose of my discussions. 
This misunderstanding is doubtless due to the imperfect or 
partial form in which they have reached you. It may be 
due in part to the fact that, at the moment of their publi- 
cation, there were made both in this country and elsewhere a 
number of expressions of opinion regarding the termination 
of the war with which my discussions may have been quite 
unjustifiably associated. The misunderstanding may be due 
in part to the caption under which they were printed. 

I make no plea for immediate peace. On the contrary, I 
entirely dissociate myself from those persons and those 
movements which would urge, on humanitarian grounds, an 
immediate peace, even at the cost of the great objects of 
the war. Until those objects are gained and, having been 
gained, are secured for the future, this war cannot end in 
anything that would deserve the name of peace. Under 
such circumstances the result would be at best a new era of 
competitive armaments and a new and desperate struggle, 
by the use of every means known to man, to gain a position 
of advantage from which to carry on another and equally 
terrible contest. 

The starting-point of my discussions, assuming the cer- 
tain defeat of Germany and her allies, is the belief that the 
time has come to consider whether the war may not be ended 



132 APPENDIX 

in the not distant future by an international agreement in 
which the United States shall participate. With a view to 
securing a basis for the discussion of such an international 
agreement certain definite proposals are being brought for- 
ward and examined in -my contributions to The New York 
Times. It would be most helpful if, when these specific pro- 
posals have been read in full and carefully considered, it 
might then be pointed out how far, if at all, they may be 
made to serve as the basis of a future international agreement 
whose aim shall be to do everything that is humanly possible 
to protect civilization against a recurrence of the present 
calamity. 

You are mistaken, too, in assuming that these articles 
have been written under the disadvantage of aloofness from 
the emotions excited by the war. While an effort has been 
made to keep any expression of these emotions from appear- 
ing in the discussions, this has been a difficult task because 
of the depth of the writer's feelings. No one to whom the 
cause of the Allies in this war does not make a profound 
emotional appeal is likely to be at all able to contribute to 
a discussion of the terms of a durable peace. 

Cosmos. 

Ill 

HALL CAINE TO COSMOS 

London, November 29, 191 6. 
To Cosmos: 

By courtesy of The New York Times I have read your let- 
ter cabled on Monday, and I hasten to say that hardly any- 
thing could be less like the general purport of your articles, 
as made known to us by the digest published on this side 
of the ocean. That digest represented them as a peace 
kite, flown possibly in German interests, or at least capable 
of being turned to Germany's account. But my letter was 
not inspired by that injurious interpretation. On the con- 



APPENDIX 133 

trary, it was suggested by regret that such language should 
be employed by a responsible organ of British opinion about 
a writer who was obviously sincere and in relation to a 
journal, The New York Times, which has published some of 
the most enlightening, searching, deeply felt and sympa- 
thetic articles that have appeared in any country during 
the period of the war. 

My letter was also prompted by a desire to make recogni- 
tion of the obvious fact that the United States could only 
be inspired by the noblest motives of humanity — against 
the manifest opposition of material interests — in initiating 
a propaganda in favor of peace. 

Therefore I did my best to answer you on the high ground 
of moral law, not of military opportunity or necessity, fre- 
quently quoting the precise terms attributed to you and 
drawing no inferences from your argument except such as 
seemed to be fair to the general trend of it. In doing this 
I think I represented the spirit of our people, who are not 
ungrateful to America for what she is doing, and would 
certainly not presume to banish the word "peace" from 
the vocabulary of the greatest of neutral nations, however 
little they may desire to use it themselves. 

But if you feel that you have cause for complaint in the 
language sometimes held toward America in this country, 
I ask you to put yourself in our place. It may be true that 
the Junkers are not all in Germany, that the Huns are not 
all in Prussia, that boastful and overbearing threats are used 
here as well as beyond the Rhine, and that in the midst of 
the immeasurable suffering that has been created by the 
war the loudest clamor against proposals for peace may 
in this country, as in the countries of our enemies, come 
from the warlike pulpits, heroic sofas, and invincible arm- 
chairs; but that is by no means the whole story. 

Our people are a proud, brave, high-spirited race, unac- 
customed to defeat and unwilling to bear the shame of it. 
In times past we have known the full bitterness of dark and 
threatening hours. Less than three centuries ago, after a 



i 3 4 APPENDIX 

period of world supremacy, we saw the Dutch fleet riding 
triumphantly in the Thames. Less than two centuries 
ago, on the eve of our greatest victories, we saw our forces 
broken on land and sea. 

But our national spirit has never been broken. We have 
never yet submitted to a disgraceful peace, and now, when 
we are, as we believe, the victim of a cruel and cowardly 
plot, when we are suffering with our allies and with some 
of the neutral nations, not excluding America, from every 
imaginable horror of treacherous warfare which inhumanity 
can devise or barbarity execute, we feel that it is not for us 
to prate about peace until it is near, and we know it to be 
right. 

Let our enemies squeal for it, whether in bravado or 
fear. It is not in the spirit of our people to do so, what- 
ever price we have to pay for our silence. That is the first 
trait of our national character, and not to know it is not 
to know our Britain — what it is and what it has gone 
through. 

Some of us who have it for our duty to speak to our 
people through great newspapers from day to day or week 
to week have been made acutely conscious of this undying 
national characteristic. There are subjects we cannot dis- 
cuss because our people do not admit that they come within 
the realm of question. There are eventualities we cannot 
contemplate because they are not believed to be within the 
region of possibilities, and above all such subjects and 
eventualities is the subject and eventuality of a peace that 
shall be premature and therefore dishonoring and dangerous. 
On that question, in spite of all our sufferings, past, present, 
and to come, the soul of our Empire is on fire. Hence the 
impatience and even suspicion with which some of the so- 
called peace talk of America has been received in this coun- 
try, and hence, too, the misconception which, as your let- 
ter shows, sometimes prevails as to the scope and aim of it. 

With the general trend of your letter, as cabled to me, I 
find myself in complete agreement. That when the war 



APPENDIX 135 

has been righteously ended (God grant it may be soon !) an 
effort ought to be made to establish an international agree- 
ment whose aim would be to protect civilization against the 
recurrence of such another calamity is a proposition that 
will commend itself to the vast majority of my countrymen, 
and it will seem to us to be fit and right that America should 
take the lead in this high enterprise as the one great nation 
whose power would command authority throughout the 
world, and whose hands are clean of the present crime. 

But in joining your league of peace we should have no il- 
lusions. We should not necessarily think that we were pro- 
moting the peace principles of the Founder of our faith. 
Those principles, as most of us understand them, are based 
on the cry that violence in whatever form employed pro- 
duces violence, and that the only way to establish the rule 
of moral law is not to resist evil. 

. But we see that that doctrine may make martyrs and re- 
ligions, not nations, and that your international league of 
peace would have to be founded on force. Like a civil gov- 
ernment, it would depend in the final resort on the power 
behind it, and therefore be liable to deadlocks and break- 
downs and some of the lesser dangers of present condi- 
tions. 

On the other hand, we recognize the difference that the 
force behind your league of peace would be a world force, 
not a national force. That difference would be fundamental. 
It would give us reason to hope that moral law would be 
allowed to operate in international disputes, and there- 
fore an ultimatum like that of Austria to Serbia would be 
impossible; that the rights of little nations would be con- 
sidered apart from the power to enforce them, and there- 
fore the violations of Belgium and the enslavement of her 
people would be unthinkable, and, above all, that such a 
world war as we are in the midst of, involving incalculable 
sufferings to millions, would never again be undertaken 
after a few delirious days of intoxicating diplomacy, con- 
ducted in secret by a handful of men who are not all dis- 



136 APPENDIX 

tinguished for intelligence or above the suspicion of un- 
worthy motives. 

If America in due time can bring to pass a coalition like 
that, it will have rendered a service to humanity such as 
the world has hardly yet dared to hope for. So blessed a 
consummation would almost reconcile us to the immeasur- 
able misery of the present frightful conflict by making us 
feel that for this reason God permitted it that, as once by 
flood so now by fire, the world might be purged of the worst 
of its impurities; that He has allowed nothing to be wasted, 
no suffering, no sacrifice; and that through the grandeur 
as well as the sorrow of the time He has given to his stricken 
world a glorious resurrection. God grant it ! 

Hall Caine. 

IV 

COSMOS TO HIS CRITICS 

December 1, 1916. 

To the Editor of The New York Times: 

To a number of letters that have reached me through 
you, written either in criticism or in commendation of my 
discussions now appearing in The Times as to the basis of 
that durable peace which all nations, whether belligerent 
or neutral, profess to desire, I should like to make brief 
acknowledgment and reply. 

Let me repeat once more that these discussions presup- 
pose the military and economic victory of the Allies over 
the Central Powers and the continuance of the war until 
it appears to be certain that an international agreement can 
be formulated which will, first, accomplish and make secure 
the ends for which the Allies are prosecuting the war, and, 
second, make every provision that is humanly possible 
against the outbreak of a similar international struggle in 
the future. 



APPENDIX 137 

These discussions are addressed primarily to Americans, 
in the hope that public opinion in the United States may- 
be led to inform itself specifically and in detail as to the 
precise ends of the war and as to the ways and means of 
accomplishing and making secure those ends when terms of 
peace are drawn up. The United States is a neutral par- 
ticipant in this war and is directly and profoundly interested 
in the outcome, not only on the field of battle but in the 
realm of political ideas and policies. It was hoped, of course, 
that these discussions would be, as they are being, followed 
in Europe, in order that to some extent at least the mind of 
the United States and the mind of Europe might be as- 
sisted to meet, at least in some degree, in regard to the 
vital issues under examination. 

Let me repeat once more that these discussions have not 
been written and printed as part of any pro-German prop- 
aganda for an immediate peace, and that they have no 
connection, direct or indirect, with any organization or 
movement in this or other countries speedily to end the 
war on the basis of a drawn military battle. It is a mere 
coincidence, and not a fortunate one, that these discussions 
have been printed at a time when such organizations and 
movements are prominently in the public eye. 

Let me suggest also that it would be more satisfactory 
and also more flattering if my correspondents would take 
the pains to read these discussions before either criticising 
or commending them. 

Cosmos. 

V 

THE ARTICLES OF COSMOS 

From The New York Times, December 18 

In the series of articles contributed by Cosmos to the 
columns of The Times, the sixteenth and concluding article 
appearing this morning, we have heard the voice of reason 



138 APPENDIX 

amid the clash of arms. The conditions upon which a 
lasting peace must be based after the end of the war have 
been his theme. A sound understanding of the rivalry of 
interests, the political maladjustments and the false ideals 
out of which the war grew was his qualification, justice and 
the deep conviction that out of this war must come measures 
of assurance against future wars have guided him to his con- 
clusions. The articles of Cosmos have called forth some 
criticism, even more they have stimulated discussion. They 
are a comprehensive prevision of the readjustments after 
the war that are essential to enduring peace. 

In the opening sentence of his ninth article the writer of 
these contributions restated the conditions which, in his 
judgment, must be the basis of peace if it is to be lasting: 

"The ground that has now been traversed includes the 
outline of a settlement of the issues of the war that would 
insure the free national development of every state whether 
great or small, the policy of the open door in international 
trade, the exemption of private property at sea, other than 
contraband, from capture or destruction, and that would 
restore Alsace-Lorraine to France as well as make Russia 
mistress of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus." 

There remains that other purpose of the war of which 
Mr. Asquith said that Great Britain would never sheathe the 
sword, not lightly drawn, until it had been accomplished, the 
complete and final destruction of Prussian militarism, that 
"state of the Prussian mind," as Cosmos calls it, that has 
made Germany a militaristic nation. There remains, too, 
reparation to Belgium by Germany, to Serbia by Austria. 

The enduring safeguards against war which nations must 
erect, the league of all to secure peace for all, provision for 
commissions of inquiry to examine causes of difference, and 
an International Court of Justice have been discussed in the 
concluding articles of the series with a remarkable breadth 
of view and a clear comprehension both of what is desired 
and of the difficulties that lie in the way. Particularly il- 
luminating is the discussion of the nature of the measures 



APPENDIX 139 

by which sanction and enforcement are to be given to agree- 
ments among nations, which must be made binding if any 
good thing is to come of them, and of the part the United 
States, in view of its Monroe Doctrine and its traditional 
detachment from European politics, may safely and properly 
take upon itself. And there are words of admonition ad- 
dressed to our people and to our States, warnings of what 
must follow their failure to come to a due sense of national 
duty and national service, of which it will be well for all 
Americans to take heed. 

In inviting these contributions from Cosmos and in pub- 
lishing them, The Times feels that it has performed a service 
of which the value will become strikingly evident when, 
after the war, the conditions of peace, in all their variety, 
consequences, and projections, come to the test of practical 
discussion. Cosmos has brought into view not merely terms 
and conditions but fundamental principles. 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 



Abbe de St. Pierre, 89. 

Adams, John, 28. 

^Egean Sea, 47. 

Africa, 95, 105; South, 10, 12, 15. 

African, South — War, 10. 

Allied Powers, Economic Confer- 
ence of, 18. 

Alsace, 13, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 
45, 54, 63. 

America, 20, 59, 95. 

American Institute of Interna- 
tional Law, 64. 

Amity and Commerce, Treaty of 
— with Prussia, 27. 

Appomattox, Battle of, 58. 

Arbitral Justice, Court of, 73, 82. 

Arbitration, Court of, 74, 77. 

Argentina, 30, 103. 

Asia, 47, 52, 95, 105; Minor, 47, 50. 

Asiatic Monroe Doctrine, 117. 

Asquith, Herbert H., 7, 10, 54, 57, 
90, 91. 

Australia, 10, 12, 15. 

Austria-Hungary, 5, 21, 30, 31, 37, 
80, 82, 99, 117. 

Avebury, Lord, 31. 

Bacon, Robert, 83. 
Balkan Peninsula, 47, 50. 
Beaconsfield, Lord, 53. 
Belgium, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 21, 31, 

37, 61. 
Bentham, Jeremy, 90. 
Berlin, 53. 
Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor 

von, 7,9, 10, 14, 22,61,91, 115. 
Bismarck, Prince von, 43, 61, 102. 
Black Sea, 47, 52. 



Blackstone, Sir William, 67. 

Blanc, Louis, 41. 

Bordeaux, 41; Protest of, 42. 

Borden, Sir Robert Laird, 32. 

Bosporus, 50, 52, 54, 63. 

Bourgeois, Leon, 73. 

Bourtzeff, M. B., 49. 

Brazil, 30. 

Brentano, Professor, 17. 

Briand, Aristide, 36. 

Bright, John, 18. 

Britain, Great, 4, 5, 6, 10, n, 12, 
14, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27,30,31, 
32,33,34,37,60,61,63,64,67, 
68, 75, 79, 82, 101, 114. 

Bulgaria, 31. 

Bulow, Prince von, 13, 73. 

Bund Neues Vaterland, 22. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 66. 

Calais, 6. 

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 
10. 

Canada, 10, 12, 15, 32. 

Canning, George, 53. 

Casablanca Case, 75. 

Case, Casablanca, 75; North At- 
lantic Coast Fisheries, 75; 
Pious Fund, 75; Savarkar, 75; 
Venezuelan Preferential, 75. 

Catherine, Empress of Russia, 48. 

Chamberlain, Houston, 57. 

China, 30, 104. 

Choate, Joseph H., 69. 

Circular Note, Russian, 29, 70. 

•Clarendon, Lord, 19. 

Clemenceau, Georges, 41. 

Cleveland, President Grover, 109. 



141 



142 



INDEX 



Cobden, Richard, 18. 

Commerce, Treaty of Amity and 
— with Prussia, 27. 

Commissions, International — of 
Inquiry, 87, 88, 91, 93. 

Conference, Economic — of the Al- 
lied Powers, 18; First Hague, 
28, 29, 69, 71, 73, 74, 94, 118; 
Second Hague, 29, 30, 69, 77, 
80, 81, 84, 87, 94, 118; Naval, 
82; Pan-American, 67. 

Constantinople, 52, 53. 

Conventions, Hague, 37. 

Council, Order in — of August 20, 
1914, 27. 

Court of Arbitral Justice, 73, 82; 
of Arbitration, 74, 77; Interna- 
tional — of Justice, 37, 68, 69, 73, 
76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 
88,91,93, 94, 9 6 i 97, "75 Inter- 
national Prize, 81; United States 
Supreme, 68, 78, 79, 84, 85. 

Cruce, Emeric, 89. 

Dardanelles, 50, 52, 54, 63. 

Declaration, Guildhall, 54; of In- 
dependence, 65; of London, 27, 
82; of Paris, 28. 

Denmark, 12. 

Dernburg, Dr., 22. 

Doctrine, Monroe, 106, 108, 109; 
Asiatic Monroe, 117. 

Dover, Straits of, 6. 

Dublin, 90. 

Einkreisungspolitik ,51. 

Empire, German, 4, 45, 55; Holy 

Roman, 44; Russian, 48. 
England, 12, 15, 34, 52, 53, 59, 67. 
d'Estournelles de Constant, Baron, 

73- 
Europe, 5, 19, 20, 27, 40, 44, 47, 
57, 64, 89, 90, 92, 95, 98, 104, 
105, 106, 108. 



Falkenhayn, General von, 48. 

Farewell Address, Washington's, 
105, 106. 

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 121. 

Fisheries, North Atlantic Coast — 
Case, 75 

France, 6, 16, 21, 30, 31, 34, 35, 
36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 52, 
54, 59, 60, 63, 64, 75, 80, 82, 92, 
101, 114, 116; He de, 43. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 28. 

Frederick the Great, 48. 

Frederick William III, 121. 

French Revolution, 44, 48. 

Fund, Pious — Case, 75. 

Gadsden Treaty, 101. 

Gambetta, Leon, 41. 

German Empire, 4, 45, 55. 

Germany, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 
16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 
34, 37, 39, 4i, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 
48, 51, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 73, 
75, 80, 82, 91, 99, 101, 114, 115, 
116, 118, 119. 

Gladstone, William E., 10, 40, 44, 

53, 64. 
Gorchakof, Prince, 50. 
Great Britain, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 

18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 32, 

33, 34, 37, 60, 61, 63, 64, 67, 68, 

75, 79, 82, 101, 114. 
Greece, 10, 12, 103. 
Grey, Viscount, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 

22, 54, «5- 
Grotius, 23. 

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 101. 
Guildhall Declaration, 54. 

Hague, First — Conference, 28, 29, 
69, 7i, 73, 74, 84, 118; Second- 
Conference, 29, 30, 69, 77, 80, 
81, 84, 87, 89, 94, 118; The, 77, 
81, 92; Tribunal, 75, 78. 



INDEX 



H3 



Hamilton, Alexander, 68. 
Hay, John, 28. 
Holland, 23, 82. 
Holls, Frederick W., 73. 
Holstein, Schleswig-, 13. 
Holy Roman Empire, 44. 
Huerta, General, 100. 
Hugo, Victor, 41. 

India, 52. 

Influence of Sea Power upon His- 
tory, Mahan's, 24. 

Inquiry, International Commis- 
sions of, 87, 88, 91, 93. 

Institute of International Law, 
American, 64. 

Inter essenpoliiik ,61. 

International Commissions of In- 
quiry, 87, 88, 91, 93; Court of 
Justice, 37, 68, 69, 73, 76, 77, 

• 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 
93, 94, 96, 97, 117; Prize Court, 
81. 

Ireland, n, 14, 21. 

Italy, 10, 12, 31, 37, 63, 82, 101. 

Jackson, Andrew, 85. 

Japan, 31, 64, 75, 82, 101, 117. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 28, 68, 108. 

Jena, 122. 

Joffre, General, 35. 

Joubert, 39. 

Kant, Immanuel, 90. 
Kitchener, Lord, 4. 

Ladd, William, 90. 

London, 7, 82; Declaration of, 

27, 82. 
Lorraine, 13, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 

54, 63. 
Loudon, Dr. J., 82. 
Lusitania, 33. 



McKinley, President William, 28. 

Machtpolitik, 47, 50, 61. 

Mackensen, General, 48. 

Mahan's, Admiral, Influence of 
Sea Power upon History, 24. 

Majuba Hill, 10. 

Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, 67. 

Marne, Battle of the, 4, 35. 

Marshall, John, 85. 

Martens, F. de, 30. 

Mazzini, 96. 

Metternich, 53. 

Mexico, 75, 99, 100. 

Michelet, 92. 

Milioukoff, Paul, 53. 

Moltke, General von, 43. 

Monroe, Asiatic — Doctrine, 117; 
Doctrine, 106, 108, 109; Presi- 
dent James, 106, 108. 

Montenegro, 31. 

Moscow, 52. 

Mouravieff, Count, 47, 71. 

Napoleon, 45, 60. 

Naval Conference, 82. 

Netherlands, The, 82. 

New York, 32. 

North Atlantic Coast Fisheries 

Case, 75. 
Norway, 30. 

Order in Council of August 20, 
1914, 27. 

Pacific Ocean, 52. 
Palmerston, Lord, 10, 53. 
Pan-American Conference, 67. 
Paris, 18; Declaration of, 28; 

Treaty of, 19. 
Pauncefote, Lord, 73. 
Peace of Utrecht, 89. 
Penn, William, 89. 
Persia, 52. 
Pious Fund Case, 75. 



i 4 4 



INDEX 



Poincare, President, 35, 36. 
Poland, 12, 13, 14, 21, 37. 
Portugal, 30, 31. 
Powers, Economic Conference of 

the Allied, 18. 
Prussia, 13, 48, 54, 55, 56, 58, 60, 

118, 119; Treaty of Amity and 

Commerce with, 27. 

Quinet, Edgar, 41. 

Reichsland, 39, 44. 

Reichstag, 7, 8, 91. 

Renault, 73. 

Revolution, French, 44, 48. 

Rio de Janeiro, 67. 

Roosevelt, President Theodore, 

28, 75- 
Root, Elihu, 29, 67, 77, 78, 79, 83. 
Rousseau, 90. 
Rumania, 31, 48, 117. 
Russell, Lord, 10, 53. 
Russia, 6, 13, 14, 21, 22, 30, 31, 34, 

46, 47, 48, 49, 5o, 5i, 52, 54, 63, 

70, 80, 82, 99, 101, 103, 114, 116, 

117. 
Russian Circular Note, 29, 70; 

Empire, 48. 
Russkia Viedomosti, 52. 

St. Pierre, Abbe de, 89. 

Salisbury, Lord, 53. 

Savarkar Case, 75. 

Schleswig-Holstein, 13. 

Schmoller, Professor^ 17. 

Scotland, 12. 

Scott, James Brown, 82, 83. 

Sea Power, Mahan's, Influence of 

— upon History, 24. 
Serbia, 5, 6, 9, 21, 37. 
Slavs, 6, 47; South, 14, 21. 
Somme, Battle of the, 4. 
South African War, 10. 
Spain, 103. 



Straits of Dover, 6. 

Strasbourg, 40, 43. 

Sumner, Professor William G., 20. 

Sussex, 33. 

Sweden, 30. 

Switzerland, 53. 

Talbot, Lord Chancellor, 67. 
Talleyrand, 38, 39. 
Tampico, 99. 
Thirty Years' War, 44. 
Trans-Siberian Railway, 52. 
Treaty, Gadsden, 101; of Guada- 
lupe Hidalgo, 101; of Paris, 19. 
Treitschke, 45. 

Troubetzkoi, Prince Eugene, 52. 
Tsar, The, 71, 117. 
Turkey, 31, 52, 117. 

United States, 3, 16, 19, 23, 25, 27, 
28, 29, 30, 31, 64, 65, 68, 75, 78, 
80, 82, 86, 88, 92, 93, 94, 95, 
96, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 
107, 109, no, in, 112, 113, 
114, 116, 117. 

Utopia, 104, 120. 

Utrecht, Peace of, 89. 

Venezuela, 75. 
Vera Cruz, 100. 
Verdun, 4. 
Vienna, 38. 

Wagner, Professor, 17. 

Wales, 12. 

Washington, D. C, 64, 91. 

Washington's Farewell Address, 

105, 106; George, 106, 107. 
Waterloo, 60. 
Webster, Daniel, 108. 
White, Andrew D., 73, 74. 
Wilhelmina, 27. 
Wilson, President Woodrow, 91, 

104. 



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